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Homer,” by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
\
THE
OUTLINE OF LITERATURE
EDITED BY
JOHN DRINKWATER
WITH ABOUT 500 ILLUSTRATIONS
OF WHICH MANY ARE IN COLOUR
IN THREE VOLUMES
★
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS^.
NEW YORK AND LONDON
TLbc Tkntcher&ocfter press-
1923
Copyright. 1923
by
G. P. Putnam's Sons
First Edition, printed, June, 1023
Second printing, July, 1923
Made in the United States of America
1 4 7 4 4
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction . .3
I. The First Books in the World ... 7
Scribes and priests — The works of Confucius — Latin literature —
The change in form — The incentive to write — Myths and
legends — Cupid and Psyche — A co-operative beginning.
II. Homer . 33
Achilles the hero — Helen of Troy — The rank and file — The Iliad
— The wrath of Achilles — The forge of Vulcan — The wander¬
ings of Ulysses — The writing of the Odyssey — Ulysses’ adven¬
tures — English translations — Pope’s translation — Lord Derby’s
version — Buteher and Lang — Homeric similes — The Homeric
world.
III. The Story of the Bible. By E. W. Barnes,
Sc.D., F.R.S., Canon of Westminster . 67
A book of many books — The Israelites — The people of the Old
Testament — Moses — The beginning of the Bible: The Law —
The books of the Old Testament — The priestly writers — The
growth of the Old Testament — The Prophets — The loss of early
documents — The spirit of Hebrew monotheism — The planning
and preaching of Ezekiel — “The Writings” — The national
literature of the Jews — A great drama — The Apocrypha — The
Wisdom literature of the Jews- — The dignified beauty of
Ecclesiasticus — The New Testament — The writers of the New
Testament — Jesus of Nazareth — The four Gospels — St. Paul —
Translations of the Bible — The first printed English Bible.
IV. The English Bible as Literature . . .113
The Bible and our national style — Tributes to the authorized ver¬
sion — The English versions — Four versions compared — An
error of form — Parallelism in Hebrew poetry — A “balance of
thought” — The Hebrew mind — Other Hebrew poetry — Two
noble eulogies.
iii
iv Contents
V. The Sacked Books of the East
The Vedas of the Brahmans — Thirty-three thousand gods — The
castes — A feat of memory — The Buddhist scriptures — The
early days of Gautama — The Gospel of Buddha — The Books
of Confucius — The literary and religious ideals of China — The
Book of Zoroaster — The teachings of Zoroaster — The Koran —
Mohammed — What the Koran teaches — The Talmud.
VI. Gkeek Myth and the Poets ....
Words and phrases — The great god Pan — Mercury’s son — Cupid
and Psyche — The road to ruin — The chariot of the Sun — Stories
of the stars — Perseus and Andromeda — Echo and Narcissus —
In the beginning — The birth of Jupiter — The Olympians — The
rape of Proserpine.
VII. Gkeece and Home . . ...
The Greek spirit — The love of justice, freedom, and truth — The
Greek theatre — The dress of actors — .^schylus — Sophocles —
The Antigone — Euripides — Aristophanes — Sappho and the
Greek Anthology — The Greek orators and historians — Plato —
The Roman spirit — Virgil — A national story — Horace — Lu¬
cretius, Ovid, and Juvenal — Catullus — Cicero — Caesar and the
historians — The last phase.
VIII. The Middle Ages .
In darkest Europe — The gradual creation of nationalities — St.
Jerome — Saint Augustine — The Niehelungen Lied — The
Troubadours — Fantastic legends — Dante — Dante and Beatrice
— The life of Dante — The Divine Comedy — Froissart’s Chron¬
icles — History of the Fourteenth Century — Chaucer and his
contemporaries — The Father of English Poetry — Malory’s
Morte d’ Arthur — ^A translation from French romances —
Fran9ois Villon, poet and thief — ^An anomaly.
IX. The Renaissance .
The new learning — The causes of the awakening — ^Ariosto and
Machiavelli — The influence of Italian Renaissance literature —
The Renaissance — Rabelais and Montaigne — Cervantes — Don
Quixote — Erasmus — Thomas More — Spenser and his contem¬
poraries — The Faerie Queen.
PAGE
137
163
187
235
273
ILLUSTRATIONS
"A Readixg from Homer/’ by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Coloured Frontispiece
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Portion of the Story of the Deluge, from a Tablet which
Probably Belonged to the Palace Library at Nineveh
Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
Engraving, Taken from a Drawing in Gell’s Pompeiana, Consist¬
ing OF A Union of All the Implements of Writing, Collected
FROM A Great Number of Ancient Paintings in Pompeii and
Herculaneum ...........
Facsimile of the Papyrus Inscribed with Hieroglyphic Text of The
Booh of the Dead ..........
Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
Papyrus Inscribed in the Hieratic Character with an Egyptian
Romance and Bearing the Names of Antef, Eleventh Dynasty,
about b.c. 2600, AND Thothmes III, Eighteenth Dynasty, about
B.c. 1600 . . . . .
Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
Jean Mielot, a Famous Scholar and Calligrapher of the Middle
Ages . ............
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
The Virgin and Child Attended by Angels, from a Copy of the
“Offices of the Virgin” ..... . .
“Apollo and Daphne,” by Bernini .......
Photo: Anderson.
“Pan and Psyche,” by Sir Edward Burne-Jones . . . . -
Photo: Fredk. Hollyer, London.
“Endymion,” BY G. F. Watts . .
Photo: Fredk. Hollyer, London.
“Orpheus and Eurydice,” by G. F. Watts ......
Photo: Fredk. Hollyer, London.
FACING
PAGE
10
10
11
14
15
18
19
20
21
24
v
VI
Illustrations
Story of Pygmaliox, “The Heart Desires,” by Sir Edward Burne-
Jones
Photo: Fredk. Hollyer, London.
The Rosetta Stone
Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
“Apotheosis of Homer,” by Ingres .......
In the Louvre, Paris. Photo: Alinari.
“Helen of Troy,” by Lord Leighton .......
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Homer Singing His Poems .........
From a drawing by Paul Chenavard in the Museum, Lyons. Photo: Braun
Preparing for the Siege of Troy .......
From a drawing by Paul Chenavard in the Museum, Lyons. Photo: Braun
“The Wine of Circe” {Coloured Illustration^ .....
From the painting by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Reproduced by per¬
mission of Frederick Hollyer.
Greeks and Trojans Outside the Walls of Troy ....
From a drawing by Paul Chenavard in the Museum, Lyons. Photo: Braun
“The Forge of Vulcan,” by Velasquez ......
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
"Penelope and Her Suitors,” by J. W. Waterhouse
Reproduced by special permission of the Director of the Aberdeen Art
Gallery.
“Captive Andromache,” by Lord Leighton ......
From the painting in the Manchester Art Gallery. Photo: Rischgitz
Collection.
“Ulysses in Ph^acia,” by Rubens ........
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“Circe and the Companions of Ulysses” by Briton Riviere, R.A.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“The Judgment of Paris,” by Rubens ......
National Gallery, London. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
George Chapman ...........
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Homer, “The Great Blind Father of Song,” by Harry Bates .
Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
“The Scapegoat,” by W. Holman Hunt ......
Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
facing
PAGE
25
28
38
39
42
43
44
46
47
50
51
56
57
60
61
61
70
Illustrations
Moses: Prophet, Lawgiver, Statesman, as Conceived by Michael
Angelo ..... ......
Moses Breaking the Tables of the Law,” by Rembrandt van Ryn
Photo: Braun, Clement & Co.
“And there Was a Great Cry in Egypt,” by Arthur Hacker, A.R.A.
Reproduced by special permission.
“Joseph Interprets Pharaoh’s Dreams,” by Harold Speed
Reproduced by permission of the artist.
A Page of the Codex Sinaiticus ........
Reproduced by kind permission of the British and Foreign Bible Society
David, the Greatest of the Hebrew Kings ......
Isaiah: The Statesman and Prophet Round Whose Name
THE Finest Religious Literature of Judaism was Gathered
From Michael Angelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.
Photo: Anderson.
Jeremiah: Perhaps the Finest Example in the Old Testament of a
Character Disciplined and Strengthened by Suffering
From Michael Angelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.
Photo: Anderson.
Ezekiel: The Mystic and Priest Who, more than Any Other Man,
Made Post-Exilic Judaism ........
From Michael Angelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.
Photo: Anderson.
“Ruth and Naomi,” by P. H. Calderon ......
From the picture in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Reproduced by
permission of the Liverpool Corporation.
“Tobit with the Archangel,” by Botticelli .....
Christ, as Imagined by Leonardo da Vinci . . . . .
“Christ Washing Peter’s Feet,” by Ford Madox Brown .
Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
The Condemnation of Jesus {Coloured Illustration') . . . .
From a painting by Antonio Ciseri.
“Jesus Mourns Over the City,” by Paul H. Flandrin
Photo: Braun, Clement & Co.
Masaccio’s Fresco of St. Peter Visited in Prison by St. Paul .
Bishop Westcott
Photo: Elliott & Fry, Ltd.
vii
FACING
PAGE
71
74
75
78
79
82
83
84
85
88
89
92
93
96
98
99
102
Vlll
Illustrations
facing
PAGE
Professor Hort . . . . . . . . . • .102
Photo: Elliott & Fry, Ltd.
R. H. Charles, Archdeacon of Westminster . 102
Photo: J. Russell & Sons.
W. R. Inge, Dean of St. Paul’s ........ 102
Photo: Russell, London.
Erasmus . . . . . . . . . . . .106
Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
Tindale Translating the Bible ........ 106
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Tindale’s New Testament, the First Printed Translation in the
English Language . . . . . . . . . .107
Reproduced by kind permission of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
From a specimen in their Library.
“The Dawn of the Reformation” . . . . . . .116
After W. T. Jeames, R.A. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Reading the Bible in the Crypt of Old St. Paul’s Cathedral . . 117
After Sir George Harvey. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“St. Paul Preaching at Athens,” by Raphael . . . . .120
The Vatican, Rome. Photo: Anderson.
“Isaac Blessing Jacob,” by Murillo ....... 121
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
“Job in His Affliction,” by Leon Bonnat ...... 122
The Luxembourg, Paris. Photo: Neurdein.
“Samson and Delilah,” by Solomon J. Solomon, R.A. . . . 123
Reproduced by permission from the original painting in the possession of
the Liverpool Corporation.
Hagar and Ishmael {Coloured Illustration) ...... 124
Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
“The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel,” by Pacecco de Rosa . . . 126
National Museum, Naples. Photo: Brogi.
“The Triumph of David,” by Matteo Rosselli . 127
The Louvre, Paris. Photo: Neurdein.
“The Sacrifice of Abraham,” by Rembrandt . 130
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Photo: Hanfstaengl.
Illustrations
IX
FACING
PAGE
“The Supper AT Emmaus,” BY Rembrandt VAN Ryn .... 131
The Louvre, Paris. Photo: Alinari.
Brahma, the Creator; Vishnu, the Preserver; Siva, the Destroyer 142
Buddha Preaching .......... 143
Statue discovered at Sarnath, 1904. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
The Beautifui. Memorial Arch (“Honourable Portal”) Leading to
THE Tomb of Confucius . . . . . . . . 148
Confucius, the Celebrated Chinese Philosopher, 651 b.c. . . 149
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Lao-Tze . I49
By permission of the Open Court Publishing Co.
A Parsee Tower of Silence, Bombay . . . 156
Photo: H. J. Shepstone.
The Mosque of Sidi Okba: the Most Ancient Mohammedan Building
IN Africa . . . . . . . . . . . .156
“N. D.” Photo.
Bird’s-Eye View of Mecca, the Religious Capital of Islam . .157
Photo: H. J. Shepstone.
“Hercules Wrestling with Death for the Body of Alcestis,” by
Lord Leighton .... . . .... 166
By permission of the Fine Art Society, Ltd.
Hylas and the Nymphs .......... 166
From the painting by J. W. Waterhouse, in the Manchester Art Gallery.
By permission of the Manchester Corporation.
Euterpe, Muse of Lyric Poetry . . . . . . . .167
Vatican. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Clio, Muse of History . . . . . . . . • .167
Valican. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
PoLHYMNiA, Muse of Sacred Poetry . . . . . . .167
Vatican. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Melpomene, Muse of Tragedy . . . . . . . .167
Vatican. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Terpsichore, Muse of Choral Song and Dance . . . . .167
Vatican. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Thalia, Muse of Comedy and Idyllic Poetry ..... 167
Vatican. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
X Illustrations
facing
PAGE
Atlas . . . . . • • • • • • • .168
National Museum, Naples. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Death of Procris, by Piero di Cosimo . . . . . .169
National Gallery, London. Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
“Atalanta’s Race,” by Sir E. J. Poynter ...... 169
By permission of the Fine Art Society, Ltd.
“Icarus,” by Lord Leighton ........ 172
Photo: Braun.
“Castor and Pollux Carrying off Talaira and Phcebe, Daughters
OF Leucippus,” by Rubens . . . . . . . . .173
Munich. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“The Return of Persephone” {Coloured Illustration) . . . 174
From the painting by Lord Leighton, in the Leeds Art Gallery.
“Perseus,” by Canova . . . . . . . . . .176
The Vatican. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Jupiter . ....... .... 176
The Vatican. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“Echo and Narcissus,” by J. W. Waterhouse . . . . .177
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool Reproduced by permission of the Cor¬
poration of Liverpool.
Act.eon Devoured by His Dogs ........ 177
The British Museum. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Apollo Belvedere . . . . . . . . . .178
The Vatican. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Venus de Milo ........... 179
The Louvre, Paris. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
The Famous Mercury Bronze by Bologna . . . . . .182
National Museum, Florence. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“An Audience in Athens, During the Representation of the
Agamemnon,” by Sir W. B. Richmond, R.A. . . . . 190
Reproduced by permission of the Corporation of Birmingham.
Amphitheatre at Syracuse in Sicily, one of the Most Perfect Ruins
OF A Greek Theatre in Existence ...... . 191
Photo: Brogi.
Comic Actors. Roman Antiquities ....... 191
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Illustrations
XI
FACING
PAGE
^SCHYLUS . . . . . . . . . . . .194
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
SoPHOCLKS ............ 194
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Euripides . . . . . . . . . . . .194
The Vatican, Rome. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“Prometheus Bound, Devoured by a Vulture,” by Adam Le Jeune . 195
The Louvre, Paris. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“Clytemnestra,” by the Hon. John Collier . . . . .198
Reproduced by special permission of S. G. Leek, Esq.
Antigone Strewing Dust on the Body of Her Brother, Polynices,
IN THE Sophocles Drama ......... 199
From the painting by Victor J. Robertson. Photo: Blaxland Stubbs.
Clytemnestra (Coloured Illustration^ ....... 202
From a painting by the Hon. John Collier. Photo: Henry Dixon & Son.
Herodotus ........... 206
Photo: Rischgitz Collection. '
Demosthenes ............ 206
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Aristophanes ........... 206
The Capitol, Rome. Photo: Anderson.
Plato ............. 206
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Socrates ............ 206
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Virgil ............. 207
Bust in the Capitol, Rome. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Medea Meditating the Murder of Her Children .... 207
Photo: Brogi.
“Sappho,” by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, R.A. . . . .212
Sappho . . • . . • • . . • . .212
National Museum, Naples. Photo: Anderson.
“School of Athens,” by Raphael . . . , . . .213
Vatican. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“Death of Socrates,” by David . . . . . . . .218
Photo: Braun.
XU
Illustrations
facing
PAGE
“The Fates,” by Michael Angelo ....... 219
Pitti Gallery, Florence. Photo: Anderson.
“.®NEAs AT Delos,” by Claude ........ 224
National Gallery, London. Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
*
“Horace,” by Raphael .......... 225
Rome. Photo: Anderson.
Ovid ............. 225
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Cicero ............. 225
The Vatican, Rome. Photo: Rischgitz Collection
Cicero Denounces Catiline ........ 228
From the painting by Maccari, Rome. Photo: Anderson.
Marcus Aurelius ........... 229
Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
Illuminated Manuscript. A Pope in Consistory. (Early fourteenth
century) ............ 240
Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
“The Vision of St. Augustine,” by Garofalo ..... 241.
National Gallery, London. Photo: W. A.Manscll & Co.
“The Meeting of Dante and Beatrice,” by Henry Holiday
{^Coloured Illustration) ......... 242
Copyright photo: Eyre & Spottiswoode, Ltd. Reproduced by permission
of the Corporation of Liverpool.
“The Ring of the Nibelungs.” The Burial of the Dead . . . 244
Dante ............. 244
National Museum, Naples. Photo: Anderson.
“The Ride of the Valkyrs,” by J. C. Dollman ..... 245
By permission of the artist.
“Brunhild and Siegmund,” by J. Wagrez . 245
Photo: Braun.
“Dante and Virgil,” by Delacroix . 250
The Louvre, Paris. Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
“Dante’s Dream,” by Rossetti ........ 251
Reproduced by permission of the Corporation of Liverpool. Photo: Risch¬
gitz Collection.
“Ring of the Nibelungs”
. 254
Illustrations xiii
FACING
PAGE
“Paolo and Francesca,” by Rossetti . . . . . . . 255
Photo: Fredk. Hollyer.
Sir Galahad (Coloured Illustration) ..... . 256
Reproduced by permission of the Medici Society, Ltd., from the Medici
Print.
“Paolo and Francesca,” by Rossetti . . . . . . . 258
Photo: Fredk. Hollyer.
Dante’s “Inferno” . . . . . . . . . . 259
“Dante in Exile,” by D. Peterlin ....... 262
Gallery of Modern Art, Florence. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Admission of Sir Tristram to the Fellowship of the Round Table.
From the Fresco by William Dyce, R.A. ..... 262
Palace of Westminster. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Chaucer at the Court of Edward III, by Ford Madox Brown . . 263
Tate Gallery, London. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“The Dream of Sir Launcelot,” by Sir E. Burne-Jones . . . 266
Photo: Fredk. Hollyer.
Francois Villon .......... 266
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“King Arthur in Avalon,” by Sir E. Burne-Jones .... 267
Photo: Fredk. Hollyer.
Ariosto ............. 278
From the painting by Titian in the National Gallery, London. Photo:
W. A. Mansell & Co.
Machiavelli ............ 278
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Rabelais . . 278
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Cervantes ............ 278
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“Sancho Panza in the Apartment of the Duchess,” by C. R. Leslie,
R.A . 279
Tate Gallery, London. Photo: W. A. Mansell & Co.
“Don Quixote and Maritornes at the Inn,” by Roland Wheel¬
wright ............ 286
By permission of the Corporation of Oldham. Photo: Eyre & Spottis-
woode. Ltd.
xiv Illustrations
FACING
PAGE
“Spenser Reading the ‘Faerie Queen’ to Sir Walter Raleigh,” by
John Clareton .......... 287
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Sir Thomas More ........... 287
After Holbein. Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Edmund Spenser ........... 287
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
The Outline of Literature
VOL. I — I
4
INTRODUCTION
A GREAT artist once said that for him at the heart of
the religious idea was a sense of continuity, that, in¬
deed, this sense amounted to religion. I was standing
with him at the time looking over an English landscape, and on
the hill-side opposite to us was an old track which generations
ago had been used by ponies to carry up the daily supply of
bread to the little village on the hill-top. The years have changed
all that. Modern methods of transport have superseded the
ponies, but the track on the hill-side can still be seen, a reminder
of the unbroken continuity of life through the centuries. And
one felt the force of the artist’s words. It is just as when, per¬
haps, you are walking about London and thinking of Shake¬
speare’s London your mind seems to be in some city not only of
three hundred years ago but a thousand miles away, and then
suddenly you realise that his London was this London and
there has been no violent change but only a gradual shifting
and growth and redistribution. And again in the thought is the
very root of the religious idea. And that is the answer to anyone
who may question the use of such a thing as the history of litera¬
ture, as apart from the direct study of literature itself. This
present Outline has two functions. First, it is to give the
reader something like a representative summary of the work
itself that has been accomplished by the great creative minds of
the world in letters. But, also, it aims at placing that work in
historical perspective, showing that from the beginning until
now, from the nameless poets of the earliest scriptures down to
s
4
Introduction
Robert Browning, the spirit of man when most profoundly
moved to creative utterance in literature has been and is, through
countless manifestations, one and abiding. It aims not only at
suggesting to the reader the particular quality of Homer and
Shakespeare and Goethe and Thomas Hardy, but also at show¬
ing how these men and their peers, for all their new splendours
of voice and gesture, are still the inheritors of an unbroken
succession.
The modern reader of the poetry of, say, Mr. Ralph Hodg¬
son, or Mr. W. H. Davies, or Mr. Lascelles Abercrombie, is
doing well by himself in the mere reading. But his pleasure is
the greater if at the time he dimly remembers how Mr. Hodgson’s
rapture flooded through the mystical poetry of the seventeenth
century, and how the beautiful lyric insolence of Mr. Davies once
did duty in Robert Herrick’s country parsonage, and how Mr.
Abercrombie is adding the stamp of his own genius to a manner
known centuries ago to Lucretius and through a line of philo¬
sophical poets down to Walter Savage Landor, to whom it
would have been possible for some of the readers of this Out¬
line to have spoken. Or to take another, and by the taste of
to-day, a more popular example. The hungry reader of the
modern novel loses nothing in his appreciation of the splendid
work that is being done by so many writers in that form if upon
the background of his mind there move the not too shadowy
flgures, fading from Dickens and Thackeray through Walter
Scott and Jane Austen to Fielding and Samuel Richardson, and
beyond them to Thomas Lodge and his fellow-writers of Eliza¬
bethan romance, and again beyond them to the mediieval trouba¬
dours and trouveres who told their stories by the evening
firelight.
The comparison of one age’s literature with that of another
in point of merit is as little profitable as the comparison of one
individual writer with another. The fine attitude towards art,
as towards everything else, is to be grateful always for the good
Introduction
5
and beautiful thing when it comes, without grudging and with¬
out doctrinaire complaint that it is not something else. It does
not help anybody to say that eighteenth century English poetry
is inferior to that of the seventeenth century, or that Fielding
was a better novelist than Meredith. All these things alike are
the great glories of a race, the one as honourably to be kept in
memory as another. But it does help appreciation to know
what was the relation of eighteenth to seventeenth century
poetry, and what was the line of descent by which Meredith came
from Fielding. Such knowledge makes us remember always
that however great the hero of our worship, he is but one figure
in an organic whole which is yet greater than he. We may, for
example, put Shakespeare with justice above all our own writers,
but we remember that the very secret of his honour is that he
stands so proudly at the head of a story so wonderful.
To know intimately the whole literature even of one
language is beyond the industry of a lifetime. But here in this
Outline are working a number of men whose devotion has been
to many branches of the art in many tongues. Together they
hope to present, in a simple form that has authority, brief annals
of the most living record of the soul of man. It is an enterprise
which must have the blessing of many for whom the way of life
has made reading necessarily haphazard and fragmentary, but
who are none the less alert to the beauty of every true book.
I
THE FIRST BOOKS IN THE WORLD
1
■ ’’ .
. * '‘*'
>f
, •t'l
THE FIRST BOOKS IN THE WORLD
§ 1
The history of literature really begins long before men
learned to write. Dancing was the earliest of the arts.
Man danced for joy round his primitive camp fire
after the defeat and slaughter of his enemy. He yelled and
shouted as he danced, and gradually the yells and shouts became
coherent and caught the measure of the dance, and thus the first
war song was sung. As the idea of God developed, prayers
were framed. The songs and the prayers became traditional
and were repeated from one generation to another, each
generation adding something of its own.
As man slowly grew more civilised, he was compelled to
invent some method of writing by three urgent necessities. There
were certain things that it was dangerous to forget, and which
therefore had to be recorded. It was often necessary to com¬
municate with persons who were some distance away, and it was
necessary to protect one’s property by marking tools, cattle, and
so on, in some distinctive manner. So man taught himself to
write, and having learned to write purely for utilitarian reasons,
he used this new method for preserving his war-songs and his
prayers. Of course, among these ancient peoples, there were
only a very few individuals who learned to write, and only a
few who could read what was written.
The earliest writing was merely rude scratchings on rocks,
and it is supposed that these rock inscriptions were traced by a
9
10
The Outline of Literature
scribe, and then actually cut by a stonecutter, who probably had
no idea of the meaning. Presently, man began to write with a
stylus on baked clay tablets. Specimens of these clay books
were discovered in Chaldea. One of them is now in the British
Museum, and is an account of the Flood. George Smith found
this tablet in 1872 in Koyunjik. This is probably the oldest
existing example of writing. It was inscribed about the year
4000 B.C., and there is reason to believe that the Hebrews
founded the story of the Flood in the Book of Genesis on the
Chaldean narrative written thousands of years before the Bible.
The Chaldeans used what are called cuneiform characters. The
word “cuneiform” is derived from the Latin cuneus, which
means a wedge. Each character is composed of a wedge or a
combination of wedges written from left to right with a square-
pointed stylus.
Scribes and Priests
The Chaldean scribes were in the pay of the Court. When
the king went to war, the scribe was an important member of his
staff. It was his business to note the number of cities captured,
the number of enemies killed, and the amount of the spoils, and,
incidentally, to accent the prowess of the king. The priests who
wrote the Chaldean religious literature also received salaries
from the royal treasury. In addition to war records and prayers,
Chaldean clay tablets have been found dealing with agricul¬
ture, astrology, and politics. It has been suggested that the clay
tablets discovered by Smith and other archaeologists were part
of the library of Sennacherib at Nineveh. Sennacherib died in
the vear 681 b.c.
Egyptian literature is next to the Chaldean in antiquity.
The Egyptian books were written on papyrus, a material made
from the pith of a reed that grew in the valley of the Nile, with
a reed pen made from the stalk of grasses, or from canes and
bamboos. The earliest Egyptian book of which we know. The
Photo: W. A, Mansell &■ Co.
PORTION OF THE STORY OF THE DELUGE, FROM A TABLET WHICH PROBABLY
BELONGED TO THE PALACE LIBRARY AT NINEVEH
OF A UNION OF ALL THE IMPLEMENTS OF WRITING, COLLECTED FROM A GREAT
NUMBER OF ANCIENT PAINTINGS IN POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM
On the left is a circular wooden or metal case, with a lid, containing six books or vol¬
umes rolled up and labelled, each according to its contents, so as to be easily
distinguished. Below this lies a stylus and a pentagonal inkstand. In the centre is a
pen made of reed, and called a calamus. Next to the case of books is the tabella or
tabulce, joined together as with hinges, and sometimes, perhaps always, covered with
wax. Another sort is hung up above this, where the stylus serves as a pin to suspend
it against the wall. A sort of thick book of tablets, open, lies to the right of the last.
In the centre are single volumes in cases. On the right are four volumes, lying in such
a manner as to want no explanation, two of which have their titles, one attached to the
papyrus itself, and the other from the umbilicus or cylinder of wood in its centre.
Photo: W. A. Mansell Ise Co.
FACSIMILE OF THE PAPYRUS INSCRIBED WITH HIEROGLYPHIC TEXT OF The Book of the Dead
Part of the oldest book in the world. A copy of the book was always placed in the tomb as a safe conduct for the soul on its journey
to the world to come.
The First Books in the World
11
Book of the Dead, was written at the time of the building of the
Great Pyramid. A copy of The Book of the Dead is in the
British Museum. Mr. G. H. Putnam describes it as “consist¬
ing of invocations to the deities, psalms, prayers, and the de¬
scriptions of experiences that awaited the spirit of the departed
in the world to come, experiences that included an exhaustive
analysis of his past life and his final judgment for his life
hereafter.”
The Book of the Dead is a sort of ritual, and a copy of the
book was always placed in the tomb as a safe conduct for the
soul on its journey to the world to come. On account of this
custom the ancient Egyptian undertakers are, as Mr. Putnam
says, the first booksellers known to history. In Egypt the liter¬
ary idea flourished in the temples, and among the many Egyp¬
tian gods was Thoth-Hermes, the Ibis-headed “Lord of the Hall
of Books.” But while much of the little of ancient Egyptian
literature that has come down to us is definitely religious, there
was also a Court literature in ancient Egypt and a popular
literature made up of folk tales. In the centuries that followed,
the Egyptians produced an extensive literature comprising
books on religion, morals, law, rhetoric, arithmetic, mensuration,
geometry, medicine, books of travel, and, above all, novels. Only
a very little of this literature has been preserved, and it is proba¬
ble that ancient Egyptian literature was not represented even
on the shelves at Alexandria, which was entirely a Greek library.
Apart from The Book of the Dead, another Egyptian
book. The Precepts of Ptah-Hotep, is probably the oldest book
in the world. Ptah-Hotep was born in Memphis and he lived
about the year 2550 b.c.*
The immense age of this oldest book but one may be real¬
ised if it be remembered that it was written two thousand years
before Moses and two thousand years before the compilation of
the Indian Vedas. It is two thousand five hundred years older
^ The authority for the date of Ptah-Hotep is Revue Archceol., 1857.
12
The Outline of Literature
than Homer and Solomon’s Proverbs. The space of years be¬
tween Solomon and ourselves is not so great as that between
Solomon and Ptah-Hotep.
The precepts were written on a papyrus 23 ft. 7 in. by 5 ft.
0% in., now in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. The fol¬
lowing is an extract from Mr. Gunn s translation:
Cause not fear among men; for (this) the God punish-
eth likewise. For there is a man that saith, Therein is
life” ; and he is bereft of the bread of his mouth. There is
a man that saith, ‘Tower (is therein)”; and he saith, “I
seize for myself that which I perceive.” Thus a man speak-
eth, and he is smitten down. It is another that attaineth
by giving unto him that hath not. Never hath that which
men have prepared for come to pass; for what the God
hath commanded, even that thing cometh to pass. Live,
therefore, in the house of kindliness, and men shall come
and give gifts of themselves.
If thou be among the guests of a man that is greater
than thou, accept that which he giveth thee, putting it to
thy lips. If thou look at him that is before thee (thine
host), pierce him not with many glances. It is abhorred
of the soul to stare at him. Speak not till he address thee;
one knoweth not what may be evil in his opinion. Speak
when he questioneth thee ; so shall thy speech be good in his
opinion. The noble who sitteth before food divideth it as
his soul moveth him; he giveth unto him that he would
favour — it is the custom of the evening meal. It is his soul
that guideth his hand. It is the noble that bestoweth, not
the underling that attaineth. Thus the eating of bread is
under the providence of God; he is an ignorant man that
disputeth it.
If thou be an emissary sent from one noble to another,
be exact after the manner of him that sent thee, give his
message even as he hath said it. Beware of making enmity
by thy words, setting one noble against the other by per¬
verting truth. Overstep it not, neither repeat that which
The First Books in the World
13
any man, ,be he prince or peasant, saith in opening the
heart; it is abhorrent to the soul.
§ 2
The Works of Confucius
Hundreds of years before the beginning of European
literature, books had been written in China. But Confucius,
the great Chinese philosopher, who flourished flve hundred years
before the birth of Christ, laid the foundation of Chinese litera¬
ture and ethics. They were written on tablets made from bam¬
boo fibre. Sometimes Chinese tablets were scratched with a
sharp stylus, sometimes the words were painted with India ink.
The Chinese also wrote books on silk. Paper was manufactured
in China about 100 b.c. The Chinese began to print from solid
blocks soon after the birth of Christ, and they were printing
from movable type three hundred years before the invention of
printing in Europe.
Early Chinese literature was ethical — the collection of tra¬
ditional wisdom concerning conduct, written in order that men
might live happily in this world and be prepared for a better
and more satisfactory life in the world to come. The ancient
Chinese writer was generally an honoured citizen, and was re¬
garded as an important national asset, but at the beginning of
the second century b.c. the Emperor Che-Hwang-ti ordered
that all books should be burned except those dealing with medi¬
cine and husbandry. This Mr. Putnam says is probably “the
most drastic and comprehensive policy for the suppression of a
literature that the world has ever seen.” Fortunately many of
the ancient songs had been learned by heart and were repeated
by public reciters. After the vandal emperor’s death the text
was again committed to writing. Though the Chinese author
could not look for any income from the circulation of his books,
he could rely on receiving a stipend from the State, and in no
country has the government held writers and students in higher
14
The Outline of Literature
honour. In this connection it is interesting to note that one of
the earliest successful women writers in the history of literature
was a Chinese woman named Pan Chao, who was writing history
at the beginning of the Christian era. The ancient literature of
China is so extensive and so distinguished, that modern Chinese
literature is little more than a series of commentaries on the
works of classic authors. The influence of the elassic writers on
the national life has been tremendous, and it has made China in
all respects the most conservative nation in the world. The
Chinese respect for tradition is so great that the production of
a modern literature that might rival the ancient literature is re¬
garded as an impious impertinence, entirely unnecessary, en¬
tirely undesirable. Moreover, the devotion to the classic writers
has prevented any change in the Chinese language since the
dawn of history. To read a poem by Chaucer written five
hundred years ago, and to note the immense difference between
the English of Chaucer and the English of to-day, makes it easy
to realise the extraordinary unchangeableness of the Chinese
language.
The Indian Vedas, the sacred scriptures of the Sanscrit
peoples, were written out at least a thousand years before Christ.
Buddha lived towards the end of the sixth century b.c., and his
teaehing caused the production of an immense Indian theo¬
logical literature, written either on dressed skins or prepared
palm-leaves. The earliest Hebrew books were written about
1300 B.c. So far as is known there was no literature in Japan
until about a thousand years ago, and in J apan, as in China and
in Greece, the public reciters preceded the written book by many
centuries.
The Phoenicians, the busy trading Semitic people who lived
in the North of Africa, and whose capital, Carthage, was
the first commereial capital of the world, first taught the
Greeks how to write, and from the Egyptians the Greeks ob¬
tained their first idea of book-making. The Greek alphabet was
Photo: W. A. Mansell 6“ Co.
PAPYRUS INSCRIBED IN THE HIERATIC CHARACTER WITH AN EGYPTIAN ROMANCE AND BEARING THE NAMES OF ANTEF,
ELEVENTH DYNASTY, ABOUT B.C. 260O, AND THOTHMES Ill, EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY, ABOUT B.C. 16OO.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
JEAN MIELOT, A FAMOUS SCHOLAR AND CALIGRAPHER OF THE MIDDLE AGES
Portrait taken from a MS. in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. This picture is interesting as showing how books were produced until
the invention of printing.
The First Books in the World
15
evolved, certainly as early as the eighth century b.c. In his
Greek literature Jevons says that reading and writing were
taught in Greece as early as 500 b.c., in which year there were
boys’ schools in the island of Chios, and it was generally re¬
garded as shameful not to be able to write and read. Jevons,
however, suggests that education in Greece at this time was
usually only enough to make a man capable of keeping accounts
and of writing to his friends, and that there is no reason to sup¬
pose that the Greeks in this early age had acquired the habit of
reading books. The Greek public reciters, who flourished be¬
fore writing became common, were called “rhapsodists,” and
their custom was to entertain audiences in the open air with a
complete recital of the Homeric epics. The rhapsodists
travelled from town to town like a modern theatrical company
on tour, and the poems and legends that they learned by heart
were the stock-in-trade that secured them a living.
Alexandria succeeded Athens as the capital of Greek cul¬
ture, and the Ptolemies, who were enthusiastic book-collectors,
endeavoured to collect every available copy of the great Greek
masterpieces. There were 700,000 Greek books ^ in the library
at Alexandria, which was partly burnt by Julius Ceesar in the
year 48 b.c. To-day, nearly 2,000 years later, there are only
four million books in the British Museum Library. On the
shelves at Alexandria, the reader found the Iliad and the
Odyssey, Plato’s Republic, the writings of Xenophon and Her¬
odotus, the plays of Euripedes, Sophocles, -^schylus, and Aris¬
tophanes, Euclid’s Geometry, and many books on mathematics
and science which have been entirely lost. It is a remarkable
fact that, though the ancients, and particularly the Romans,
were expert road makers, working according to scientific plans,
there is in existence no treatise on the ancient art of road-making
nor on any other branch of ancient engineering. Such books
^Not 700,000 separate works, but that number of volumes. The library was also
a publishing concern, where books were manifolded.
16
The Outline of Literature
must have been in existence, but they have completely disap¬
peared.
The Library at Alexandria
The books in the library at Alexandria were very different
things from the books in the British Museum. Most of them
were written on papyrus, a material made from the pith of an
Egyptian reed, and a few were written on parchment, the use
of which had been discovered about a hundred years before the
Alexandria library was set on fire. The papyrus book looked
very much like a modern map. The matter was written on one
side only, and the papyrus was fastened to a wooden roller,
round which it was rolled. Some of these rolls were very long,
but the usual habit was to make them comparatively short. The
papyrus was generally about a foot in width. The book was
written in a series of narrow columns running the full length of
the roll, and the columns were from two to three and a half
inches, with lines in red ruled between them. Homer’s Iliad
would probably have been written on at least twenty-four dif¬
ferent rolls, and there were many copies of the same work in
the Alexandria library, so that the actual number of individual
books was very much less than the number of rolls. After the
book had been written on the papyrus by the scribe, it was orna¬
mented and embellished by a craftsman, who was the prototype
of the modern book illustrator. Then the binders received the
manuscript, and their business was to cut the margins and
smooth the parchment or papyrus. The scroll was then fixed to
a wooden roller, and the knobs at the end of the rollers were
often decorated with metal ornaments. The manuscripts were
written with reed pens in ink made of lamp-black and gum.
The back of the book was dyed with saffron, and the rolls were
usually wrapped in parchment cases, dyed purple or yellow.
The scribes were, also, the earliest booksellers. They would
borrow a manuscript, possibly for a fee, laboriouslv copy it on
The First Books in the World
17
their papyrus scrolls and sell the copies. There were many of
these scribe-booksellers dwelling in Athens fifty years before
the birth of Christ. They had their shops in the market-places,
and by the time of Alexander the Great the book-selling trade
had become an established institution. The ancient bookseller
was not always particularly honest, and it was a common prac¬
tice to give a modern manuscript the appearance of a rare
antique by burying it in a sack of grain until the colour had
changed and the papyrus had become worm-eaten.
§ 3
It was in the third century before Christ that Alexandria
under the incentive of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and his great
librarian and publisher Callimachus, became the centre of Greek
literary activity, and about the same time Roman writers began
to create original work in the manner of the Athenians. Per¬
haps the most famous literary achievement at the beginning of
Alexandria’s literary history was the translation of the Old
Testament into Greek in the version that is known as the
Septuagint. According to tradition the translation was made
by seventy learned Jewish Rabbis. The fact that the papyrus
was manufactured in Egypt helped to give Alexandria its im¬
portance as a book-producing centre, and its geographical posi¬
tion kept it, to a large extent, outside the constant wars that
devastated so large a part of the ancient world. Staffs of ex¬
pert copyists worked in the great Alexandrian library under the
supervision of authoritative scholars, and the copies they made
were distributed throughout the world by the Alexandria book¬
sellers. The prominent literary position of Alexandria con¬
tinued long after its conquest by the Romans and until Greek
ceased to be the fashionable language of the ancient world.
Even as late as the fifth century a.d. Alexandria was a centre of
culture and learning, a fact which Charles Kingsley has em¬
ployed with dramatic effect in his novel Hypatia.
VOL. I — 2
18
The Outline of Literature
Latin Literature
In its beginning the literature of Rome was a foreign litera¬
ture. As Rome established itself as the capital of the world,
ambitious writers flocked to it from all parts of the world, just
as in the eighteenth century they flocked to Paris, but for a very
long time Greek remained the literary language. Long after
the Roman armies had occupied the whole of the Grecian
Peninsula, the cultured Roman read Greek books, bought from
Alexandrian copyists. The only parallel to the recognition of
Greek as the sole worthy literary language occurred in the
eighteenth century when French held much the same position on
the continent of Europe, and when Frederick the Great of
Prussia amused himself by writing French verse. When a Latin
literature began to be produced it was entirely based on Greek
models. The Greek plays were translated into Latin, Homer
was translated into Latin, and the original Latin work was in¬
evitably imitative. In this connection it is interesting to note
that many of the more conspicuous Latin authors, who flourished
before the first century b.c., that is to say before the beginning
of the Golden Age of Latin literature, were foreigners and not
Romans by birth. The classic period of Latin literature barely
lasted a hundred years. Between the year 100 b.c. and the birth
of Christ, Cicero, Lucretius, Csesar, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, and
Livy all lived and wrote and died.
In his interesting work on the Fascination of Books^ Mr.
Joseph Shay lor says:
The Roman libraries and bookshops were the resort
of the fashionable as well as of the learned society of this
period. At these shops, literary and critical friends met
and discussed each new book as it appeared from the copy¬
ist. These shops were located in the most frequented places.
The titles of new and standard books were exhibited outside
the shops as an advertisement. Announcements of works
in preparation were made in the same way. The outside
t crtt tanquam Ugnmu qttoD ytaxitatnw
cst fcirtisxfmtlnB aqtiaziiut:^C|ttotJ fvudtuu txi
^ iH-titt in tetnpie ttioji
Dleaciiccteggg;^
Xi tfag nouxeEuctet ottmfa gutcaij
roiott ftt topi I non taiiquam pntnfB
cmyaotcrt arntroa factetcrcp
n onreCTircrott mpij fu firt) ttto um
TS'iiv confiltoludozuttti
oafam iioatttomlntigtiiamtnfto^^fd: t
‘ impiozitm l^nbttv
"^l^arcfrctuticcnnt geiatesttyopiilCine
tjftatffintt
— >i— r . m
w
atusiur'quino
albutmconfiKotta
yiotmit:*tttnalayct
faioztttn n on iittii
%in catltt>;ia4^Icit
tfetioiTCebfti
tO fu Icgetomari
iiolmitasc(M0vffn
■JBi
THE VIRGIN AND CHILD ATTENDED BY ANGELS, FROM A COPY OF THE “OFFICES OF THE VIRGIN”
This is a wonderful example of an illuminated MS. , the work of the monks in the later Middle Ages. The beautiful illumin¬
ated ornamentations of borders and letters remain things of beauty and delight to this day.
Photo: Anderson.
“APOLLO AND DAPHNE,” BY BERNINI
The story of Apollo and Daphne is told by Ovid, the Roman
poet, and touched on by Prior, Shelley, and other moderns.
Apollo, the sun-god, fell in love with Daphne, the dew, the
daughter of the god of the river. The god pursued her and she
fled to her father for refuge. As her feet touched the water’s
edge, she found herself rooted to the ground, her father having
heard her supplications and changed her into a laurel-tree. So
the dew, when the sun kisses it, vanishes and leaves nothing but
verdure in the place where it has been.
The First Books in the World
19
box from which cheap books might be collected was also a
feature in trade. Many of these old-time customs have
their counterpart in the publishing and book-selling of to¬
day. We read of Cicero desiring to pay for a copy of one
of his books which he wished sent to a friend, so that it
should not be entered on the register of complimentary
copies, and also giving instructions as to the “remainder”
of a particular book consisting of a considerable number of
copies of which he wished to dispose at a cheap rate.
We are told that the most frequent fate of unsuccess¬
ful poetry was to be used for the wrapping up of fish and
other goods, while large supplies of surplus stock- found
their way from the booksellers to the fires of public baths,
a very right way of disposing of them, and a method which
modern publishers might often adopt with advantage.
Other ancient customs have still their modern significance,
such as buying all rights in a MS. A royalty system also
existed, and authors were frequently paid in part for their
labours by receiving copies of their published book, al¬
though by many it was considered degrading to ask for
payment for literary work, a form of pride which is not
common to-day. As no copyright law was then in existence,
books were copied and re-copied immediately upon
publication.^
Professional writers in ancient Rome depended for their
livelihood on the patronage of the wealthy lover of letters, and
it is worth noting that what was true in Rome before the birth
of Christ remained true of the whole of Europe until the end
of the eighteenth century. Horace and Virgil depended on the
bounty of M£ecenas, an enlightened millionaire who regarded the
poet as the most useful of all the servants of the State. Cen¬
turies afterwards Moliere and La Fontaine depended on the
bounty of Louis XIV, and English men of letters in the eight¬
eenth century had either to find a patron or to starve.
^Shaylor credits this passage to Putnam’s Authors and their Public in Ancient
Times.
20
The Outline of Literature
The Change in Form
In the third century a.d. books began to change their form.
Instead of being continuous rolls, the pages were folded and
stitched and bound together in wooden boards, which were
generally ornamented. During the Dark Ages, when few new
books were written, it was in the monasteries that books
found their only safe lodgment and willing hands to copy them.
In most monasteries there was a room called the scriptorium
where the work of transcribing was carried on.^ Occasionally
some comparatively enlightened layman appreciated the work
of these literary monks. The great Charlemagne, for example,
granted the rights of hunting to certain monasteries in order that
the monks might provide themselves with material for the covers
of their books from the skin of the deer. Although in these ten
centuries there was little original authorship, there was splendid
artistic expression in the ornamentation of manuscripts. The
monkish illuminated borders and letters remain things of beauty
and delight.
Probably the oldest illuminated manuscript is the Virgil,
with its fifty miniatures on its seventy-six pages of vellum, in
the Vatican. Ornamentation and illustration were practised
in the first centuries after Christ in Alexandria, and it is proba¬
ble that Byzantine illumination began there. There were many
kinds of illumination in the Middle Ages. The art was patro¬
nised by Alfred the Great, and was practised at Winchester
and elsewhere in England. Its chief development was in Bur¬
gundy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Happily,
many examples of these beautiful monkish MSS., with their
delicately ornamented borders and fine initial letters, have been
preserved. The monastery scribes wrote with quill pens. In his
^ The Scriptorium was instituted in the Benedictine Monastery at Monte Cassino
by Cassiodorus about 487.
Photo: Fredk. Ilollyer, London.
“pan and psyche,” by sir EDWARD BURNE-JONES
Psyche asked Pan for succour and advice after Cupid had left her, as related on page 25.
Photo: Fredk. Hollyer, London.
“endymion,” by g. f. watts
The story of Endyrr.ion is fully told on pages 25 and 26.
The First Books in the World
21
interesting book, Illumination, Mr. Sidney Farnsworth says
that probably the earliest allusion to the quill pen “occurs
in the writings of St. Isidore of Seville, who lived in the early
part of the seventeenth century.” Quills were, however, in use
at a much earlier time, and bronze pens were used by the
Romans.
The artistic activities of the monasteries were not by any
means universally applauded. One medieval Puritan, referring
to these beautiful manuscripts, said;
Some possess the sacred books and have them as if
they had them not. They shut them up in their book chests.
They pay attention only to the thinness of the skin and
the elegance of the letter. They use them less for read¬
ing than for show.
The mediseval monks who transcribed manuscripts were gener¬
ally exonerated from manual labour in the fields.
The volumes in the monastic libraries consisted of pages as
accurately and beautifully written as if they were printed. In
the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow there is one volume that
was always accounted among the printed books, until a curious
observer discovered on a certain page that there was a hole in
the parchment, and that this hole had been skipped. This, of
course, was a proof that the work had been written by a scribe
and not printed by a printing press. Writing of monkish manu¬
scripts, Andrew Lang said:
It is one of the charms of the MSS. that they illus¬
trate in their minute way all the art and even the social
condition of the period in which they were produced.
Apostles, saints, and prophets wear the contemporary cos¬
tume, and Jonah, when thrown to the hungry whale, wears
doublet and trunk hose. The ornaments illustrate the
architectural taste of the day. The backgrounds change
22
The Outline of Literature
from diapered patterns to landscapes as newer ways of
looking at nature penetrated the monasteries.
In Charles Reade’s novel The Cloister and the Hearth there
is a vivid description of the artist-monks of the Middle Ages.
One of them says:
A scroll looks but barren unless a border of fruit and
leaves and rich arabesques surround the good words and
charm the senses as those do the soul and understanding,
to say nothing of the pictures of holy men and women de¬
parted, with which the several chapters would be adorned,
and not alone the eye soothed with the brave and sweetly
blended colours, but the heart lifted by effigies of the saints
in glory.
The literary work of the monasteries only came to an end when
printing was invented by Gutenberg, a subject which will be
dealt with in a later section of this Outline.
§ 5
The Incentive to Write
So far, we have been considering the production and the
embellishment of books, but before we proceed to the detailed
examination of the great achievements of literature it is neces¬
sary to discover the reasons that impelled men from the earliest
ages to write books. As we have already seen, so long ago as
the birth of Christ the world possessed an elaborate literature
which contained supreme examples of every literary form, and
we have seen how this literature developed after the invention of
writing. Let us endeavour to realise the mentality of prehistoric
man living a hard life in a sparsely inhabited and bewildering
world. He was continually confronted by phenomena which he
could not understand, and by problems to which his ever-in¬
creasing intelligence demanded an answer. Andrew Lang has
summarised these problems:
The First Books in the World
23
What was the origin of the world and of men and of
beasts? How came the stars by their arrangement and
movements? How are the motions of sun and moon to be
accounted for? Why has this tree a red flower and this
bird a black mark on its tail? What was the origin of the
tribal dances or of this or that law of custom or etiquette?
Myths and Legends
In finding their answers to these questions, prehistoric men
were influenced by the fact that they did not possess our sense of
superiority to the rest of creation. They believed that all ani¬
mals had souls, and that there was personality even in the inani¬
mate. Thus Herodotus tells us that the Egyptians regarded
fire as a live beast, and the wind has been universally regarded
as a person and the father of children. As Andrew Lang says :
“To the savage sky, sun, sea, wind are not only persons, but they
are savage persons.” With these beliefs in his mind, the pre¬
historic man set out to find answers to the problems of the
universe, and these answers naturally took the form of a story
or, what is called, a myth. Mythology has provided us with
the early mental and spiritual history of our race. When litera¬
ture came to be created and man started to write, he naturally
first wrote down those well-known stories, which had been re¬
peated from generation to generation, each new generation add¬
ing something of its own of the mysteries of life and death and
of man’s general relation to the world in which he lived. These
myths, which form the basis of literature, cover a vast field of
speculation. They include myths concerning the origin of the
world and the origin of man; myths concerning the arts of life,
that is to say, stories telling how man learned the use of the bow
and the plough, how he learned the art of pottery, and so on;
myths concerning the sun and the moon and the stars; myths
concerning death; and finally and perhaps most interesting,
romantic myths, stories concerned with sex love and the relation
24
The Outline of Literature
between men and women. In all these myths the one common
quality is the personality given to animals and to inanimate
objects, and this general conception led to the idea that the
world was peopled by a vast army of gods acutely and often
hostilely interested in human affairs — gods to be worshipped,
gods to be placated. Between the myth and the development of
the religious idea there is a very intimate connection. The begin¬
ning of literature was largely concerned with the records of the
deeds of the gods, and, as we have seen, as the religious idea
developed and man built temples and constructed a ritual of
worship, the temple became in many parts of the world the first
home of the book.
There is no more interesting and important fact in human
history than the universality of folk-songs and legends. There
is an amazing similarity between the subjects of the songs of
the East and the songs of the West, and stories are common to
all the peoples of the world. Many theories have been devised to
explain the wide distribution of myths. It has been suggested
that the resemblance is purely accidental, but this is ridiculous.
It has been suggested that the stories, common to Indians,. Per¬
sians, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Scandinavians, Russians, and
Celts, were known to the ancestors of them all, the Aryan tribes,
who lived on the central Asian tablelands before they emigrated
westward, in several great waves, to found the European na¬
tions. This seems a plausible enough explanation, but it ignores
the fact that the stories known to all the Aryan peoples are
also, in some instances, known to non-Aryan peoples like the
Chinese and the American Indians. Probably the most satis¬
factory explanations of the universality of myths is that they are
the result of universal experience and sentiment. As Andrew
Lang has said:
They are the rough produce of the early human mind and
are not yet characterised by the differentiations of race and
culture. Such myths might spring up anywhere among
“With his lute made trees
And the mountain tops, that freeze,
Bowe themselves when he did sing,”
Orpheus married Eurydice, who was bitten by a venomous serpent and died. Orpheus obtained the permission of Jupiter to seek
her in Hades, where his music tamed the savage Cerberus and comforted the spirits condemned to eternal torment. He found his wife,
but, disregarding the command of Pluto not to look her in the face until he was out of Hades, lost her again, and he was left to lament
alone until his own death. The universality of the classic myths is shown by the fact that the name Eurydice is derived from the
Sanskrit and means “the broad spreading flush of the dawn across the sky.’’
Photo: Fredk. Hollyer, London.
STORY OF PYGMALION. “THE HEART DESIRES,”
BY SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES
Pygmalion was the hero of one of the most famous of the Greek myths. He was a sculptor
and, having completed the statue of a most beautiful woman, whom he christened Galatea,
he prayed to Venus to give life to his work, and the goddess answered his prayer. In com¬
mon with so many other classical myths, the story of Pygmalion and Galatea has inspired
modern poets, among them Schiller and Andrew Lang. A play was written round the myth
by W. S. Gilbert.
The First Books in the World
25
untutored men and anywhere might survive into civilised
literature.
Cupid and Psyche
Whatever the explanation may be, the wide distribution of
these old-world stories is a most suggestive and interesting fact.
It may be worth while giving two examples. The story of
Cupid and Psyche is one of the best known incidents in Greek
mythology. Psyche, the youngest daughter of a king, was so
beautiful that she excited the jealousy of Venus herself, and the
goddess bade her son Cupid slay her mortal rival. Cupid stole
into Psyche’s apartment, but, when he caught sight of her love¬
liness, he started back in surprise and one of his own arrows
entered into his flesh. He vowed that he would never hurt such
beauty and innocence. Shortly afterwards he became Psyche’s
lover, visiting her at night, making her promise that she would
never attempt to discover his name or to catch a glimpse of his
face, and warning her that if she broke her promise he would be
compelled to leave her for ever. For a long time she restrained
her curiosity, and then one night she lighted her lamp and gazed
in admiration at her sleeping lover. Accidentally she let a drop
of oil from the lamp fall on to Cupid’s shoulder, and he im¬
mediately sprang from the couch and flew through the open
window, and Psyche had to suffer many things before her lover
was restored to her.
This same story of a bride who disobeys the orders of her
husband occurs in the Norse legend of Freja and Oddur, and is
told in the Indian Vedas of Pururavas and Urvasi. There is
also a Welsh and a Zulu form of the same story. The even
more familiar Greek story of Diana and Endymion has its ver¬
sions in other languages. Diana, the goddess of the moon, was
driving her milk-white steeds across the heavens, when she caught
sight of Endymion, a handsome young shepherd, asleep on the
hillside. She bent down and kissed him, and night after night
26
The Outline of Literature
she left her car at the same place for a hasty blissful moment.
As Byron has written:
Chaste Artemis, who guides the lunar car,
The pale nocturnal vigils ever keeping,
Sped through the silent space from star to star,
And, blushing, stooped to kiss Endymion sleeping.
After a while, Diana could not bear the thought of En-
dymion’s beauty being lost or marred, so she caused him to fall
into an eternal sleep and hid him in a cave never profaned by
human presence. This story belongs to the Solar Myths, and it
is generally supposed that Endymion was the setting sun, at
which the moon gazes as she starts on her nightly journey. The
same story is known to the Australian aboriginals, perhaps the
most backward race in the world, to the Cingalese, and to certain
African tribes, always, of course, with local variations.
These myths were the artistic possession of humanity long
before the beginning of literature, and they have inspired poets
throughout the ages, not only Homer and Ovid, but modern
writers like Browning, Hawthorne, Herrick, Longfellow, Mere¬
dith, William Morris, Pope, Swinburne, Tennyson, and par¬
ticularly Byron, Shelley, Keats, and Rossetti. It was to the
stories of mythology that the great painters of the Renaissance
turned for subjects when Greek learning and Greek culture
were restored to Western Europe, and, centuries afterwards the
same stories inspired the noble group of pre-Raphaelite painters,
which was one of the outstanding glories of Victorian England.
A Co-operative Beginning
It is of the first importance to note that literature had a co¬
operative and not an individual beginning. The early stories
of the stars, as well as the first songs crooned by mothers to their
babies, were handed along from age to age, changed, elaborated,
improved, until at last they were scratched on the bark of a tree
The First Books in the World
27
or elaborately written out on the papyrus. At the same time as
men were inventing and elaborating myths they were also ac-
cumulating records. As families grew into tribes, and as tribes
contended for the best pastures and the best fishing, there were
countless opportunities for individual prowess and courageous
achievement, and the mighty deeds of the heroes of one genera¬
tion became in succeeding generations the cherished possessions
of their family and their tribe. The stories were repeated with
pride, and, as time went on, the actual deeds of the fighting man
were picturesquely exaggerated until he came to be regarded
either as himself a god or as the chosen protege of a legion of
gods. These individual achievements were intimately associated
with the history of the tribes to which the heroes belonged, and,
thus, when men first began to write, there was a vast amount of
biographical and historical tradition already in existence in the
world, known by heart by scores and hundreds of different per¬
sons and ready for the scribe permanently to preserve.
But even myths, vast as was the ground they covered, and
heroic legends did not exhaust the material ready to the hand
of the first man who learned to write. The associated life neces¬
sarily leads to accepted custom and convention. It is impos¬
sible for a number of individuals to live together in a family or
in a tribe without observing certain rules. These rules become
more stringent and, at the same time, more interesting when
they are associated with certain recurring events. The out¬
standing events in every human life are birth, death, and
marriage, and with each of these certain traditional ceremonies
were soon generally observed. The changing seasons also
brought with them ceremonies, originally intended for the placa-
tion of the gods, and springtime and harvest, the sowing of the
seed and the reaping of the crops, became red-letter days in the
primitive man’s year. These customs and ceremonies also sup¬
plied a fertile field for the first scribes. In addition there was
ready for them a vast oral collection of nursery stories, closely
28
The Outline of Literature
allied of course with the more terrifying myths, of proverbs and
of droll sayings, mostly comments on the familiar incidents of
life.
§ 6
Poetry is far older than writing. It has now been estab¬
lished that the folk-songs of the European peoples, still repeated
and sung by peasants in out-of-the-way villages, are an
“immemorial inheritance.” Andrew Lang says:
Their present form, of course, is relatively recent: in
centuries of oral recitation the language altered auto¬
matically, but the stock situations and ideas of many
romantic ballads are of dateless age and worldwide
diffusion.
The very name ballad suggests the method by which men
first began to arrive at the rhythmical arrangement of words.
“Ballad” is derived from the old French verb halier, which
meant to dance, and the ballad was originally a song sung by a
dancer, the words necessarily accompanying the movement. The
custom of improvising words to fit a dance still exists in Russia
and in the Pyrenees. Puttenham, an English writer of the six¬
teenth century, says in his Art of English Poesie:
Poesie is more ancient than the artificial! of the Greeks
and Latines, and used of the ancient and uncivill who were
before all science and civilitie.
These early songs and dances were the first artistic expres¬
sion of emotion. With them primitive men found (again to
quote Andrew Lang) “the appropriate relief of their emotions
in moments of high-wrought feeling or on solemn occasions.”
In addition, therefore, to the stories and legends and myths, the
biographies of traditional heroes and the records of families and
tribes, the first professional literary man had a store of popular
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Photo: W. A. Mansell &• Co.
THE ROSETTA STONE
This “Stone” is a portion of a large black basalt stele measuring 3 feet 9 inches by 2 feet
4 yi inches, and is inscribed with fourteen lines of hieroglyphics, thirty-two lines of demotic,
and fifty-four lines of Greek. It was found in 1798 by a French officer of artillery named
Boussard, among the ruins of Port Saint Julien, near the Rosetta mouth of the Nile, and was
removed, in 1799, to the Institul National at Cairo, to be examined by the learned; and
Napoleon ordered the inscription to be engraved and copies of it to be submitted to the
scholars and learned societies of Europe. In 1801 it passed into the possession of the British,
and it was sent to England in February 1802. It was exhibited for a few months in the
rooms of the Society of Antiquaries, and then was finally deposited in the British Museum.
From this inscription was first obtained the key to the decipherment of the hieroglyphics
and the interpretation of the ancient language of Egypt; the names of the Kings, which in
the hieroglyphics are enclosed within oblong rings or “cartouches,” giving the clue to the
identification of the letters of the hieroglyphic alphabet.
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The First Books in the World
29
songs to write down on his papyrus, and it is clear that these
songs were the beginning of all poetry, poetry having been de¬
fined by Mr. Watts-Dunton as “the concrete and artistic expres¬
sion of the human mind in emotional and rhythmical language.”
It is important to note that in poetry as well as in prose the
initial impulse was absolutely popular. The common dreams
and aspirations were the subject of the unknown poets, who gave
them a new and greater beauty. This early popular art was
followed by the development of a definite poetry of personality,
the expression of particular rather than general emotion, which
was an aristocratic and not a democratic possession. The ex¬
tent to which the folk-song belonged to the people has been
proved by the continuance of its popularity into the centuries of
progress and civilisation. In the Golden Age of Greece and
Rome, few men could read and fewer still could write. But
most men could sing, and many men could improvise songs. In
the dark centuries that followed the fall of the Roman Empire,
hooks had few readers, but songs were still sung. The new
learning that came with the Renaissance hardly affected the
common people, and the power to read and write has only be¬
come general during the last hundred years. But through all the
ages the unlettered have possessed a spoken literature of their
own — stories and songs, the same in substance as the stories re¬
peated and the songs sung by primitive tribesmen long before
the beginning of historical records.
There is no more interesting and important fact in human
history than the similarity of folk-songs and legends. The same
stories are common to all the peoples of the world, and there is
an amazing similarity between the subjects of the songs of the
East and the songs of the West. A great and entertaining
literature has been written round this subject in recent times.
In these pages it has been sufficient to suggest the origins of
romantic literature and to point out the vast store of material
that was waiting for the first literary artist. Early literature
30
The Outline of Literature
was therefore the colleetion of traditional artistic possessions,
the first writers selecting, arranging, and beautifying stories and
songs that had been familiar to their ancestors for many genera¬
tions. This fact should be borne in mind by the reader as he
begins to consider the monuments of ancient literature, the epics
of Homer and the earlier books of the Bible.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
For the early forms of books — i.e. the codex; writing with the stilus, etc.
— see Sir E. Maunde Thompson’s Handbook of Greek and Latin Palceography.
F. A. Mumby’s The Romance of Bookselling deals with the history of
book-selling and publishing from very early times, including the production
of books in Ancient Greece, Alexandria, Ancient Rome, etc.
The Printed Book by H. G. Aldis.
Books in Manuscript by Falconer Madan.
The Binding of Books by H. P. Horne.
Early Illustrated Books by A. W. Pollard.
G. H. Putnam’s Books and Their Makers During the Middle Ages: a
Study of the Conditions of the Production and Distribution of Literature from
the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Close of the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols.
Also, by the same author. Authors and Their Public in Ancient Times.
Illuminated Manuscripts by J. A. Herbert.
English Colored Books by M. Hardie.
For the early history of Libraries, see Edward Edwards’s Libraries and
the Founders of Libraries. This includes descriptions of the Ancient Libraries
of Egypt, Greece, the Roman Empire, etc., and also the Monastic Libraries.
Another book is E. C. Richardson’s The Beginnings of Libraries and the
same author’s Biblical Libraries ; A Sketch of Library History from 3400 b.c.
to A.D. 160.
A very useful little book for the beginner in mythology is Bulfinch’s The
Age of Fable. Andrew Lang’s Book of Myths is a book for younger readers.
Among other general books on mythology may be mentioned Sir G. L.
Gomme’s Folk-Lore as an Historical Science.
The Science of Fairy Tales by Hartland.
The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. Evans Wentz.
Greek and Roman Mythology by Dr. H. Steuding.
Northern Hero Legends by Dr. O. L. Jiriczeks.
Northern Mythology by D. E. Kaufmann.
An Introduction to Mythology by L. Spence.
The Myths of Greece and Rome by H. A. Guerber.
The First Books in the World
31
Myths of the Norsemen by H. A. Guerber.
Myths and Legends of the Middle Ages by H. A. Guerber.
Hero-Myths and Legends of the British Race by M. I. Ebbutt.
Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race by T. W. Rolleston.
Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists by Sister Nivedita and Dr. A.
Coomaraswamy.
Myth and Legend in Literature and Art deals with all the main mytho¬
logies.
Andrew Lang’s articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica are invaluable
in the study of myths.
The Series by Jacobs Celtic Fairy Tales, More Celtic Fairy Tales, English
Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, Indian Fairy Tales, Europa’s Fairy
Tales, contain many myths presented in the form of the fairy tale as do
Legends and Stories of Italy by A. S. Steedman, East O’ the Sun and West O’
the Moon by Dasent, and Chinese Fairy Tales by Fields.
Sir J. G. Frazer’s Classic work. The Golden Bough; A Study in Magic
and Religion, in twelve volumes. There is also an excellent abridged edition
of this in one volume.
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HOMER
§ 1
Homer is the greatest of all the epic poets, and he has
left us the earliest pictures of European civilisation.
Both as poetry and as history the Iliad and the
Odyssey hold a place apart in world-literature, and it is appall¬
ing to think of what would have been the consequences if they
had not been preserved. They constituted the Bible of the
Greeks in historic times; thus the philosophers, Plato among
them, are constantly quoting lines from them to illustrate a
point of morals or to clinch a spiritual argument just as Chris¬
tians have been in the habit of using scriptural texts. To the
Greeks Homer was the poet, just as to us the Bible is the book;
and they, like us, have often found a deeper significance or a
more poignant consolation than was originally intended in plain
words which have gathered, in the long succession of time, a
charm of association and the added beauty that is memorial.
Moreover, these truly great poems, temples open to sunshine
and sea-breezes, and built of noble numbers, have been models
for the epic in every western age that knew them, or the works
that perpetuated their pattern (e.g. Virgil’s j^neid). It is
probable that we should never have had the “artificial epics,” as
they have been called, of Virgil, Lucan, Dante, Milton, and the
rest, if the Homeric poems had been lost. It is even possible
that such a loss would have prevented the “grand style” of
poetry from being consciously cultivated. But what perhaps
35
36
The Outline of Literature
illustrates the enormous influence exerted by those happily pre¬
served masterpieces of man’s imagination is this strange fact
— that even in the workaday world of to-day plain people know
the meaning of the adjective “Homeric,” though they may not
have read a single line of any translation of Homer. We all
know what is meant when a speaker or a writer alludes to
“Homeric grandeur” or “Homeric laughter,” or observes that
“even Homer sometimes nods.” Furthermore, the chief Hom¬
eric characters are known to us all for their predominant quali¬
ties: Achilles for his valour, Helen for her beauty, Ulysses for
his resourcefulness, Penelope for her faithfulness. Any orator,
even if his pedestal be only a soap-box at a street-corner, can
use one of these names to point a moral; they are as familiar on
our lips as the names of Hamlet or Pecksniff, Othello or
Micawber.
I have spoken, and shall go on speaking, of Homer as a
poet, human and indivisible; this is done “without prejudice,”
as the lawyers say — that is, without expressing any present
opinion as to the way in which the Homeric poems came into
being. He or she who wishes to visit the “wide expanse”
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne,
and to “breathe its pure serene” (the inspired Keats gets the ab¬
solutely just word here!), need know nothing whatever about
that controversial labyrinth, the Homeric Problem. Indeed, a
childlike ignorance of the whole vast discussion started by
Wolf’s Prolegomena (published in 1795) is a real advantage,
for it puts the new votary in the position, as it were, of a listener
to the recital of the poems in the springtide of historic Hellas
when nobody had even begun to doubt whether the Iliad and the
Odyssey had been created by the same master-poet, the selfsame
blind old singer of a later but still beautiful legend, which shows
us many cities contending for the honour of being his birthplace.
For these poems can be read in verse translations — with joy to
Homer
37
the reader — for the story, and to become acquainted with the
noble men and women, the not more noble gods and goddesses,
who love and hate and fight and speak and live and die in their
stirring vicissitudes.
Achilles the Hero
There are no better stories to be found in books; no person¬
ages better worth knowing. In Achilles we have a hero indeed;
lacking the Christian gentleness that is an aureole about Lance¬
lot’s bowed head, it is true, but though barbaric in the violence
of his anger and his unrestrained sorrow, yet a glorious fighter,
a gentleman unafraid of the early doom ordained for him (even
his chestnut steed knows all about it), capable of the tenderest
compassion and of high-born courtesy to a suppliant enemy. In
Ulysses, again, we meet the heroic adventurer, bravely enduring
all the toils and terrors of a world that is still wonderland; a
lover of his wife, too, to the end, and unable to find, even in the
embraces of an ageless goddess in her garden-close in a fairy isle,
any cure for his homesickness — for, if he had no word equivalent
to our “home” on his lips, yet he had the thing itself in his much-
enduring heart.
Then there are the Homeric women, fair and wise and holy
— ^hardly equalled for noble simplicity in the long galleries of
heroic womanhood, from Sophocles to Shakespeare. There is
Andromache, the loving young wife and mother who, in losing
her chivalrous and valiant Hector, loses all that makes life worth
living. There is Penelope, lacking nothing of the gentle dignity
of the lady of a great house, even when that house is invaded by
turbulent suitors who waste its substance and seduce her serving
women, utterly destroying the kindly discipline of the household ;
keeping under hard trial her beauty and her honour, the respect¬
ful affection of her son, Telemachus, and her loyalty to her long-
absent lord. Then there is the maiden Nausicaa on the eve of a
fair marriage — perfect in her sense of household duties, her vir-
38 The Outline of Literature
ginal delicacy, her charming common-sense, her gracious and
generous courage. Above all and before all, there is Helen, the
innocent cause of the wars of the Greeks and Trojans alike, who
is all the more impressive because we see so little of her and be¬
cause Homer, unlike the makers of medieval romances, is far
too wise to attempt a catalogue of her charms — here is an early
example of the “nothing too much” which is the secret of so
many triumphs of Greek art! Because of this reticence the
beauty of Helen has lived through the ages and made flaming
altars of the hearts of innumerable poets.
Helen of Troy
Almost all our knowledge of Helen’s beauty is derived from
a few lines in tbe third book of the Iliad where she goes up to
the walls of Troy to see the fight between Paris and Menelaus.
“So speaking, the goddess put into her heart a longing for her
husband of yore and her city and her father and mother. And
straightway she veiled herself with white linen, and went forth
from her chamber, shedding a great tear.” When the elders of
Troy, seated on the wall, saw her coming, softly they spoke to
one another winged words: “Small wonder that the Trojans and
mailed Greeks should endure pain for many years for such a
woman. Strangely like she is in face to some immortal spirit.”
The other Trojan women, when Troy fell, became the spoils of
the victors, slaves and paramours; Cassandra lost her life,
Andromache her little son, as later stories tell. But Helen was
restored to her husband and her gleaming palace in Sparta, and
we meet her again when Telemachus goes there, in hopes of
getting news of his father. She is then once more the fairest of
earthly queens, her beauty august as Dian’s, and the perfect
hostess, as she sits in her golden arras-covered chair and Philo,
her hand-maiden, brings her the wonderful silver work-basket
on wheels, which she received as a parting gift from Alcandra,
wife of the King of Thebes in Egypt. And she recognises Tele-
Photo: Alinari.
“apotheosis of homer,” by INGRES
(In the Louvre, Paris;
A picture representing the homage of Poets of all Ages to the “great Blind Father of Song.”
“HELEN OF TROY,” BY LORD LEIGHTON
. The face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium! ”
Homer
39
machus by his likeness to his father whom she had known so well
in the days when, under the compulsion of the Goddess of Love,
she belonged to Paris for a season. It is with perfect good breed¬
ing that she alludes to the stormy past when, against her will,
she was the cause of so much shedding of blood and of tears.
Many other of the Homeric persons live in remembrance,
so clearly are their personalities set forth without waste of
words; for it is what they say and do, not any comments of the
poet, that defines them for the reader. The crowd, however,
the nameless rank-and-file of the contending powers, is hardly
a person of the drama, as it would be in an epic written in these
democratic days. In the battle-pieces all we perceive of the
nameless hosts is the bronzen glow of their harness, the hubbub
of their cries, the storm of their stones — and they fade away
into serried insignificance, even when the stage is given up to
“man-slayings,” successions of personal combats between the
lesser heroes. It is true that, when the Greeks assemble to discuss
great questions of military policy, even the fierce, overbearing
king of men, Agamemnon, must take heed of the trend of their
mass opinion. The beginnings of Greek democracy, which is
the root of our own, are here clearly indicated.
The Rank-and-File
But it is seldom indeed that the heroes and the deities trouble
themselves about the rank-and-file. Thersites, the only dema¬
gogue who does raise his voice in hitter, sneering words — curi¬
ously enough, he is a man of very noble ancestry, well-connected
even for Homeric personage — gets thrashed by Ulysses, who
has a special dislike for him. The gods and goddesses are alto¬
gether human, except that they are immune from death (though
not from pain, such as that of a wound) and have power and
beauty beyond the lot of mankind. Just as they have had their
love-affairs with mortals, gods and goddesses alike, to engender
a Helen or an Achilles, so they descend into the press of human
40
The Outline of Literature
battle, to help this or that combatant in a duel or even to fight
hand-to-hand themselves. They brag and revile one another
before fighting in the very manner of mortals. Mars calls Min¬
erva “dog-fly” before lunging at her with his spear, and when he
is laid out by a jagged black stone, which hits him on the neck,
and falls “reaching over seven furlongs as he fell,” the goddess
taunts him in most unladylike fashion. Juno calls Diana a
“Shameless she-dog,” grabs her bow and quiver, beats her sorely
with them, and the huntress-deity, “ ‘full of tears,’ fled like a
wood-pigeon.” Even more comical, to modern ideas, is the way
Juno uses her charms, putting on her best immortal clothes and
ear-rings with three gem stones in them, and borrowing the love-
producing embroidered girdle of Venus on pretence of reconcil¬
ing Oceanus and Tethys, in order to prevent Jove from carrying
out the arrangement that the Trojans should win a battle.
She also bribes Sleep to her husband when he has had her em¬
braces. She so well succeeds in arousing his passionate admira¬
tion that he proceeds to compare her favourably with seven other
persons he has had love dealings with, before constructing out
of a cloud a covert in which he can embrace her unseen. The
characters of the deities are as clearly presented by Homer as
those of the mortal heroes and heroines. Jove is imperious, genial,
impatient, passion-swayed, a bit uxorious; Juno, intent on secur¬
ing victory for the Greeks, is a diplomatic great lady who knows
just when her petulance has exhausted her lord’s patience, and
it is necessary to resort to caresses ; Apollo, prophet and minister
of death, actively enforces his fateful decrees; Minerva is the
puissant war-goddess and a patron of art and industry, and also
what we should call an excellent woman of business.
This familiarity with the denizens of Olympus, absurd as it
seems to us moderns, is really a striking proof that Homer im¬
plicitly believed in them as personally engaged in the manage¬
ment of human affairs. The selfsame naive faith inspires the
legends of the Middle Ages in which we find the saints leaving
Homer
41
Paradise to take part in the labours and diversions of humble
persons, and even the Virgin Mary helping a devout worshipper
to meet his (or her) beloved.
§ 2
THE ILIAD
The story of Homer’s Iliad is the story of the Trojan war.
The myth begins with a quarrel of the gods. Eris threw among
the guests at a wedding feast an apple bearing the inscription
“for the fairest.” Juno, Venus, and Minerva each claimed the
apple and Jupiter, the god above the gods, decided that Paris,
younger son of Priam, king of Troy, should decide between
them. It was Venus to whom Paris gave the apple and thus in¬
curred the deadly hatred of the other two goddesses. Soon after
his decision had been given, Paris sailed to Greece. He was
entertained by Menelaus, king of Sparta, and he repaid the
hospitality by making love to his wife, the incomparably beauti¬
ful Helen, whom he persuaded to elope with him to Troy. Mene¬
laus called on the other Greek chieftains to aid him in recovering
his wife, and after some hesitation the most famous of them, the
subtle Ulysses, the hero Achilles, gigantic Ajax, Diomed, Nes¬
tor, the oldest of the chiefs, and Agamemnon, the brother of
Menelaus, responded to the call. Agamemnon was appointed
commander-in-chief of the Greek army. The great leader of the
Trojan forces was Priam’s elder son. Hector, husband of Andro¬
mache, and son of the famous Hecuba. The gods took sides in
the contest. Juno and Minerva were naturally for the Greeks
and against the Trojans, while Venus and Mars were on the
other side. Neptune favoured the Greeks, and Jupiter and
Apollo were neutral. The war had lasted for nine years when a
quarrel occurred between Achilles and Agamemnon — and here
the story of the Iliad begins.
42
The Outline of Literature
The Wrath of Achilles
It is the anger, not the valour, of Achilles which is the unify¬
ing motive of the Iliad. The “wraths” or feuds of heroes are
common themes in Greek legends, as in those of the Scandi¬
navian peoples. It was decreed, we are told in the first few
- lines, that innumerable ills should visit the Greeks, camped be¬
fore Troy, because of the quarrel between Achilles and Aga¬
memnon, the leader of the host. The camp was afflicted with a
deadly pestilence, and, when Calchas, the seer, was asked to
discover the cause, he tells Agamemnon that Apollo has been
launching his envenomed arrows because of the king’s refusal
to ransom the daughter of Chryses, his priest, in a city the
Greeks had taken and sacked, sharing the women and other
spoil. Agamemnon yields the maiden, and tyrannically de¬
prives Achilles of Briseis, his share of the captured women.
Achilles returns to his tent and ship in bitter anger, and implores
Thetis, his goddess mother, to bring the vengeance of heaven on
the tyrant. Jove is loath to offend his wife, who is on the side of
the Greeks, and sends a dream messenger to Agamemnon, coun¬
selling him to prepare battle against the Trojans in certain hope
that it will bring about the fall of the city, which has already
been besieged for ten years.
There is much high debate, both in the Greek camp and in
the heavenly court, in the first two books, the second of which
ends with a roll-call of the forces on either side. Thus early we
notice the action shifting from earth to heaven and back again.
Also this peculiarity of the speeches is apparent ; they faithfully
express the general characters of the speakers, whether human
or divine, but there are none of the little intimate touches which
modern writers employ to reveal individuality. This is a charac¬
teristic of Greek oratory in all ages (even to-day, it is said by
a friend of M. Veniselos), and one of many proofs that the
Greek genius refrains from personal detail, which might obscure
the general effect, in all matters of art.
Photo: Braun.
HOMER SINGING HIS POEMS
From a drawing by Paul Chenavard in the Museum, Lyons.
Before the invention of the art of writing, wandering bards, of whom Homer may have been one, journeyed from village to village recit¬
ing their songs.
Photo: Braun.
PREPARING FOR THE SIEGE OF TROY
From a drawing by Paul Chenavard in the Museum, Lyons.
The Greek army included Achilles, the great fighting hero.
Homer
43
In the absence of Achilles the long battle goes against the
Greeks, though their more famous champions perform many
valiant deeds. The Olympians anxiously foUow the course of the
struggle, each of them doing what he or she can to help this side
or that and to rescue special favourites. There are many dra¬
matic full-length episodes of man-to-man fighting; the back¬
ground of the narrative is coloured crimson and bronzen, as it
were, with manslayings. Paris challenges the Greek princes
and is vanquished by Menelaus, but rescued by Venus, who
threatens Helen that she will cause both hosts to wreak
vengeance on her if she persists in refusing her embraces to her
cowardly paramour. A truce between the armies is violated by
Pandarus, who wounds Menelaus with an arrow. Diomed slays
a number of the minor champions of Troy, including the treach¬
erous Pandarus, wounds first Venus and then Mars — ^vain vic¬
tories for which, as later legends aver, he paid with his life. The
Greeks more than hold their own until Hector arms himself and
takes part in the fray. There is a set duel ending in a draw,
so to speak, between Hector and the greater Ajax (whom the
lesser Ajax follows through legend, faithful as a shadow), and
they exchange chivalrous words and gifts at parting. The
action then shifts to “many-ridg’d Olympus,” where Jove for¬
bids all interference on the part of the other gods and goddesses,
foretelling later on the misfortunes that await the Greeks. Hec¬
tor at once prepares his host for an attack on the Greek camp in
the morning. And that very night, the besieging forces being
visited by “Panic, companion of Chill Fear,” Ulysses, Phoenix,
and Ajax go to Achilles to arrange a reconciliation, offering on
behalf of Agamemnon to restore the still unravished Briseis
(poor “maid of Brisa”! thrown from hand to hand, she has no
name of her own!) , to give him one of the king’s three daughters
in marriage, without requiring him to make a settlement on her,
and to add to the other gifts seven fair cities. Achilles refuses
in a speech which is the supreme climax of the Homeric oratory.
44
The Outline of Literature
The translation is by Lord Derby:
O soul of battles, and thy people’s guide!
(To Ajax thus the first of Greeks replied)
Well hast thou spoke; but at the tyrant’s name
My rage rekindles, and my soul’s on flame :
’Tis just resentment, and becomes the brave;
Disgraced, dishonour’d, like the vilest slave 1
Return, then, heroes ! and our answer bear.
The glorious combat is no more my care;
Not till, amidst yon sinking navy slain.
The blood of Greeks shall dye the sable main ;
Not till the flames, by Hector’s fury thrown.
Consume your vessels, and approach my own;
Just there, the impetuous homicide shall stand.
There cease his battle, and there feel our hand.
It is an eventful night. Diomed and Ulysses enter the Trojan
camp in the darkness, slaying Rhesus and taking his snow-white
steeds. This is a thrilling exploit, wonderfully well told. But,
led by Hector, the Trojans are irresistible, and even Neptune
could not have saved the Greek camp from capture but for the
love-stratagem of Juno. Perhaps the real “moral” of the Iliad
is to be expressed in the lines:
Two things greater than all things are:
One is Love, the other is War.
The great turning-point in the tremendous drama, which stirs
heaven as profoundly as earth, comes when Patroclus inter¬
venes, wearing the armour of Achilles and leading his Myr¬
midons to battle. Hector kills Patroclus and a nobler “wrath”
lifts the epic to a loftier range of emotion. Even the Greek
critics, trained in the higher and more intense life of Greek
tragedy, have seen that anger at the loss of a girl slave was an
inadequate motive for “sulking in one’s tent”; only the sublime
genius of Homer could have carried it off so well.
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45
The Forge of Vulcan
Achilles is wild with anger and grief at the death of his
dearest comrade; the loss of his armour (equivalent to the loss
of his guns by a modern soldier) touches him in his honour as a
warrior. Vulcan, at the suit of Thetis, forges for the hero a new
suit of harness; the description of the shield is one of the most
famous passages in Homer and, now we know so much of
Mycentean art, a priceless piece of historical evidence.
The translation is by Ernest Myers:
First fashioned he a shield great and strong, adorn¬
ing it all over, and set thereto a shining rim, triple, bright-
glancing, and therefrom a silver baldrick. Five were the
folds of the shield itself; and therein fashioned he much
cunning work from his wise heart.
There wrought he the earth, and the heavens, and
the sea, and the unwearying sun, and the moon waxing to
the full, and the signs every one wherewith the heavens are
crowned, Pleiads and Hyads and Orion’s might, and
the Bear that men call also the Wain, her that turneth in
her place, and watcheth Orion, and alone hath no part in the
baths of Ocean.
Also he fashioned therein two fair cities of mortal men.
In the one were espousals and marriage feasts, and beneath
the blaze of torches they were leading the brides from their
chambers through the city, and loud rose the bridal song.
And young men were whirling in dance, and among them
flutes and viols sounded high ; and the women standing each
at her door were marvelling. But the folk were gathered
in the assembly place; for there a strife was arisen, two
men striving about the blood-price of a man slain; the one
claimed to pay full atonement, expounding to the people,
but the other denied him and would take naught; and
both were fain to receive arbitrament at the hand of a days¬
man. And the folk were cheering both, as they took part
on either side. And heralds kept order among the folk,
while the elders on polished stones were sitting in the sacred
46
The Outline of Literature
circle, and holding in their hands staves from the loud-
voiced heralds. Then before the people they rose up and
gave judgment each in turn. And in the midst lay two
talents of gold, to be given unto him who should plead
among them most righteously.
This is only part of the decoration of this famous shield.
No wonder that when Vulcan had finished his task and had given
it to the goddess Thetis, the mother of Achilles, “she like a falcon
sprang down from snowy Olympus bearing from Vulcan the
glittering arms.”
Achilles is reconciled to Agamemnon and, clad in his new
armour, leads out the Myrmidons to battle, slaying many
Trojan champions but seeking solely the life of Hector.
So packed is the narrative that it is no more possible to
indicate here every important incident ^ than it would be to ex¬
hibit the characters and careers of, say, all Thackeray’s people
in a brief abstract. Let me give a “close-up,” as it were, of the
most tragical episode of Hector’s death at the ruthless hands
of Achilles.
Hector, “bound by deadly Fate,” stands before the walls of
Troy at the Sc£ean Gate. His old father, Priam, is on the walls;
he sees Achilles rushing on “like the star that rises in harvest
time” — the Hound of Orion that brings fever on men. Both
Priam and Hecuba implore their son to come within the walls,
but he is deaf to their entreaties.
Achilles draws nigh and Hector awaits him, like a mountain
serpent in his den, full of poison and full of wrath. But when
Achilles is on him, his bronzen armour a blaze, the sense of
doom overawes him and he takes to flight. Achilles pursues
him round the walls of Troy, like a falcon pursuing a dove.
All the Olympians are watching the twain; Jove asks — Shall
we save Hector or allow Achilles to slay him? Minerva protests
* There are 15,673 lines in the Iliad, 12,889 in the Odyssey; and something vital is
said or done in 90 per cent, of these lines.
Photo: Braun.
GREEKS AND TROJANS OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF TROY
From a drawing by Paul Chenavard in the Museum, Lyons.
Helen, the wife of Menelaus, had fled from Greece to Troy with Paris, King
Priam’s son, and a Greek army marched against the city to recover Helen from
her lover.
Vulcan is the god-smith. Homer relates that Zeus banished him from heaven for rebellion.
Homer
47
against the idea of saving a mortal doomed long ago by destiny.
At the third circuit of the walls, as Jove “hung his golden bal¬
ances and sets in them two lots of drear death,” one for either
combatant. Hector’s scale sinks and from that moment nobody,
not even Apollo can save him. Minerva, who darted down to the
battlefield, assumes the form of Deiphobus, Hector’s brother,
and pretends she has come to help him. Thus heartened. Hector
turns to defy Achilles to combat. Before fighting he proposes
a chivalrous pact: that, whichever of them falls, the other shall
restore his body to receive the funeral rites due from his friends.
Achilles refuses sternly ; there can be no pact between them, any
more than between men and lions or wolves and sheep.
Achilles hurls his spear; Hector crouches and it flies over
his head; Minerva, unseen of Hector, restores it to the Greek
hero. Hector hurls his spear, but misses; he calls to Deiphobus
for a second spear. But Deiphobus has vanished, and it flashes
on Hector that Minerva has played him false. He knows his
doom is on him, but draws his sword and attacks his foe, hoping
to do something memorable before he dies. Achilles mortally
wounds him with a spear-thrust in the neck ; fallen and dying he
implores the victor not to let his body be devoured by dogs from
the Greek ships. Achilles, his hate unsated, will brook no
thought of ransom for the corpse: “would that my heart’s de¬
sire,” he replies, “could bid me carve thy flesh and eat it now,
for the evil thou hast done me.”
To whom thus Hector of the glancing helm,
Dying : “I know thee well ; nor did I hope
To change thy purpose ; iron is thy soul.
But see that on thy head I bring not down
The wrath of Heaven, when by the Scaean Gate
The hand of Paris, with Apollo’s aid,
Brave warrior as thou art, shall strike thee down.”
Even as he speaks, he dies and his spirit passes to the view¬
less shades. Achilles foully misuses his body, piercing the feet.
48
The Outline of Literature
and binding them to his chariot with leathern thongs, and trail¬
ing the noble head in the dust, as he drives at break-neck speed
back to the Greek camp.
It is not the end. The funeral rites are paid to Patroclus
and games held in his honour. Then, cured of his madness of
sorrow and wrath, Achilles repents of his desecration of a noble
enemy’s corpse, and receives Priam with kindness and reverence,
granting withal an eleven days’ truce while the funeral rites are
rendered to Hector. Yet the Greeks of the days to come, with
their bitter loathing of any insult to the bodies of the dead (which
Hesiod includes in his list of the five deadly sins), never quite
forgave Achilles for his brutal and barbarian frenzy. Tragical
though his life was, overshadowed by the certainty of death in
his prime, he was never made the hero of a Greek tragedy.
The Iliad finishes with the funeral of “Hector, tamer of
horses.” Andromache, his stricken wife, is the real heroine of
the story. Troy is destroyed by the Greeks, but amid the clamour
of the men of war the reader hears “the far-off echo of a woman’s
sigh.” There is no mention in the Iliad of the deaths of Achilles
and Paris. But both were killed during the siege. In the
Odyssey the ashes of Achilles are said to have been buried in a
golden urn, and Sophocles tells us that Paris was mortally
wounded by Philoctetes just before the capture of Troy.
§ 3
THE WANDERINGS OF ULYSSES
The Odyssey is the story of the wanderings of Ulysses after
the fall of Troy and the victory of the Greek host. Menelaus
had recovered his wife, Helen, and she had returned with him to
Sparta. The other Greek heroes > had also gone home, all but
Ulysses, whose wife Penelope with their son Telemachus waited
with anxious hearts in his kingdom of Ithaca. ,
Homer
49
The Writing of the Odyssey
There is not the electrical atmosphere of doom in the
Odyssey which at times affects the reader of the Iliad like
the imminence of a thunderstorm. When Bentley said that the
former was written for women and the latter for men he put into
definite words an indefinable feeling which occurs to all careful
students of Homer; except for one atrocious episode of revenge
and torture, the manners of the people in the story of Ulysses’
wanderings are milder and there is far more of what may he
called domestic interest. Indeed, it is diffieult not to feel that
the Odyssey was written in a later and more eivilised age, or at
any rate at a period when the uncivilising effects of a great war
had passed away, and those who are faithful to the old idea
that they were both the work of one poet, will believe that he
composed the Iliad in the fierce prime of life and the Odyssey in
his serene old age. The temperamental gap between the two
poems is far greater than that between “Paradise Lost” and
“Paradise Regained.”
The Odyssey falls so naturally into six actions, each con¬
sisting of four books, that it seems to have been so designed by
the author. The first section is mainly concerned with the trouble
Telemachus, the wandering hero’s only son, has with the suitors
for his mother Penelope’s hand and goodly estate, and his jour¬
ney to Pylos and Sparta in quest of news of his lost father.
Ten years had passed since the sacking of Troy, and no¬
thing had been heard at home of Ulysses’ fate. He had failed to
bring his men baek to roeky Ithaca, for they had perished
through their folly in killing and eating the oxen of the Sun,
and he himself had been cast away on a lonely isle, the abode of
the nymph Calypso. She wanted him to forget his mortal wife
and marry her, and to that intent had kept him in her wondrous
island all the while. Neptune, who had never forgiven Ulysses
for killing his ogre of a son, Polyphemus, happening to be away
on a visit to the Ethiopians, “the utmost of mankind,” the other
VOL. I — 4
50
The Outline of Literature
Olympians get together and arrange Ulysses’ return home.
Mercury is sent to tell Calypso of the decision, while Minerva
appears in disguise to Telemachus and advises him to seek news
of his father from his father’s friends, Nestor and Menelaus.
The next day Telemachus sends the criers round the town
to summon an assembly to hear his complaints of his mother’s
suitors who are eating him out of house and home. Antinous,
the bully of the suitors, blames Penelope for all the trouble;
she had sent beguiling messages to every one of them, and had
for nearly four years tricked them with the weaving of a pall she
said was for Laertes (the father of Ulysses, and a very old and
weary man), working by day and undoing the work at night.
The other suitors are insolent, but Minerva in a new disguise pre¬
sents herself as Mentor, and gets Telemachus the ship he re¬
quires for his voyage. So he visits Nestor at Pylos, who tells
him about the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, but has
no news of his father. Nestor advises him to go to Sparta and
see if Menelaus knows anything. He and the son of his wise old
host, Pisistratus, set out for Lacedeemon in a chariot and pair.
At Sparta Helen recognises him, and they all weep over the
great days that have been. It is a joy to the young men (yes,
and to every reader) to see the ever-beautiful Helen, and to hear
what she and her husband have to say. The latter tells the
company how, when the famous W^ooden Horse had been
brought into Troy, Helen walked round it, striking the hollow
ambush with her hand and imitating the voice of each Greek
prince s wife so faithfully that, but for the example of restraint
shown by Ulysses, some of them would have answered back or
even leapt out of the horse. What is more to the purpose, Mene¬
laus tells Telemachus that his father is in Calypso’s lonely isle;
which information, with other facts about the unhappy adven¬
tures of the Greek heroes, Menelaus had obtained by disguising
himself as a seal and seizing Proteus, seer of the deep, and
holding him tight as he variously disguised himself (as lion.
Reproduced by special permission of the Director of the Aberdeen Art Gallery.
“PENELOPE AND HER SUITORS,” BY J. W. WATERHOUSE
After the siege of Troy, Ulysses wandered for many years. His adventures supply the plot of the Odyssey. His wife, Penelope,
remained at home in Ithaca, persecuted by many suitors.
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Homer
51
dragon, panther, bear, a limpid stream, a shady tree), until the
“Old Man of the Sea” was tired and compelled to answer
questions.
The next two sections deal with the wondrous adventures
of Ulysses. The fair Calypso obeys the behest of Olympus and
allows Ulysses to go; though she cannot understand why he
wants to leave one who is so much better-looking than his wife
and undergo more hardship on the stormy seas. However, she
lends him the tools to build a ship and equips him, and so Ulysses
sails off to Phseacia, keeping the Great Bear on the left as the
Nymph enjoins. Neptune, however, on his way back from the
Ethiopians, spies him, guesses that the other deities have stolen
a march on him, and stirs the sea with his trident and raises a
terrible storm. Ulysses is washed overboard, but Ino, in the
guise of a seagull, lends him her magic veil, which keeps him up
till he can swim ashore, when he throws the veil into the sea for
Ino to catch it. So he comes to Phseacia, is helped by Nausicaa,
daughter of King Alcinous, and hospitably entertained in the
King’s wonderful palace standing in its glorious garden full of
fruit-trees, vines, and flowers in bloom all the year round.
Ulysses has been cast up on the shore of Phaeacia unkempt
and naked. And when he is met by Nausicaa, her servant maids
take to their heels. But the Princess is kind and sensible. She
gives him clothes and food and directs him to her father’s pal¬
ace. The quotation is from Butcher and Lang’s translation:
When thou art within the shadow of the halls and the
court, pass quickly through the great chamber, till thou
comest to my mother, who sits at the hearth in the light
of the Are, weaving yarn of sea-purple stain, a wonder to
behold. Her chair is ’leaned against a pillar, and her
maidens sit behind her. And there my father’s throne
leans close to hers, wherein he sits and drinks his wine, like
an immortal. Pass thou by him, and cast thy hands about
my mother’s knees, that thou mayest see quickly and with
52
The Outline of Literature
joy the day of thy returning, even if thou art from a very
far country. If but her heart be kindly disposed toward
thee, then is there hope that thou shalt see thy friends, and
come to thy well-builded house, and to thine own country.
Ulysses’ Adventures
The Phaeacians hold games and a great feast in honour of
their guest and give him presents — garments and a talent of gold
to begin with — so that he can eat his supper with a glad heart.
At the feast Demodocus sings the Sack of Troy and the Sally
of the Greeks from the Wooden Horse, and Ulysses is so af¬
fected that he sheds tears which are perceived only by King
Alcinous, who makes a speech and says the stranger ought to
tell them his name. He tells his name, his home, and his amazing
adventures since leaving Troy. He has sacked the city of the
Cicones; he has visited the land of the lotus-eaters, where some
of his men wished to tarry. “Whosoever of them did eat the
honey-sweet fruit of the lotus, had no more wish to bring tidings
nor to come back, but there he chose to abide with the lotus-eat¬
ing men ever feeding on the lotus and forgetful of his homeward
way.” He has met the fearsome one-eyed Cyclops, Polyphemus,
from whom he and his men escaped bound under the bellies of
the ogre’s sheep. He has visited Alolus, who dwelt “in a floating
island,” from whom he received a fair wind as a present with all
the other winds in the world tied up in a bag. Unfortunately his
men untied the bag and his ship was driven back to Alolus, who
this time refused to receive him. He has been to the isle of
^£ea, where Circe turned his men into swine. Fortunately, as
Ulysses hurried through the sacred glades in the endeavour to
rescue his followers, he met the god Mercury, “in the hkeness
of a young man with the first down, on his lip,” and the god gave
him a herb “black at the root, hut the flower was like to milk,”
which saved him from Circe’s enchantment. With her he stayed
a year and then he once more began his wanderings, his men
again in human form. But the climax of all these tremendous
Homer
53
adventures is the descent into Hades, where Ulysses talks with
Tiresias, the seer, and is told of the manner of his end: “Death
shall come to you very gently from the sea and shall take you
when you are full of years and peace of mind.” He also talks
with the ghost of his mother, and hears what is happening to his
wife and son and old father in Ithaca. Then Proserpine sends
up the ghosts of the wives and the daughters of great kings and
heroes of old time, and he makes each of them tell her story.
Then he converses with the ghost of Agamemnon, who warns him
not to be too open with his own wife, and of Achilles, who hears
about the brave conduct of his son, Neoptolemus, in the Wooden
Horse, and strides off over a meadow of asphodel, exulting in the
lad’s prowess. He sees Minos with his golden sceptre judging
the dead; he sees Tityus, Tantalus, and Sisyphus enduring their
everlasting punishments. He gazes on the mighty Hercules,
bow in hand and arrow on the string, wearing about his breast
his golden pictured belt.
After leaving Hades, Ulysses and his men came to the
narrow strait where “on the one hand Scylla and on the other
mighty Charybdis in terrible wise sucked down the salt sea
water.” Ulysses thus describes his last adventure:
I kept pacing through my ship, till the surge loosened
the sides from the keel, and the wave swept her along stript
of her tackling, and brake her mast clean off at the keel.
Now the backstay fashioned of an oxhide had been flung
thereon; therewith I lashed together both keel and mast,
and sitting thereon I was borne by the ruinous winds.
Then verily the West Wind ceased to blow with a
rushing storm, and swiftly withal the South Wind came,
bringing sorrow to my soul, that so I might again measure
back that space of sea, the way to deadly Charybdis. All
the night was I borne, but with the rising of the sun I came
to the rock of Scylla, and to dread Charybdis. Now she
had sucked down her salt sea water, when I was swung up
on high to the tall fig-tree, whereto I clung like a bat, and
54
The Outline of Literature
could find no sure rest for my feet nor place to stand, for
the roots spread far below and the branches hung aloft out
of reach, long and large, and overshadowed Charybdis.
Steadfast I clung till she should spew forth mast and keel
again; and late they came to my desire. . . . And I let
myself drop down hands and feet, and plunged heavily in
the midst of the waters beyond the long timbers, and sitting
on these I rowed hard with my hands. . . . Thence for
nine days was I borne, and on the tenth night the gods
brought me nigh to the isle of Ogygia.
After he finished his story King Alcinous sends him to
Ithaca with all his presents in one of the Ph^acian ships that
w'ere so clever they could have found the way by themselves.
So we return with him to a workaday world, where he must
tread wearily to escape being slain with his son by his wife’s
suitors. The sections that follow are the least enthralling por¬
tion of the Homeric epics. Only his old dog recognises him at
sight; and cannot follow and fawn on him, for he dies in the
moment of recognition. Ulysses enters his house as a beggar
and undergoes many humiliations, for unfaithful servants in¬
sult him and the suitors have little of that respect for a suppliant
guest, which recognises that courtesy is the better part of charity,
and is the most beautiful and homely thing in the life of the
Homeric world. The irony of circumstances has its poignant
moments when the destined avenger, the inexorable and irre¬
sistible warrior, is treated as a vagabond while he is preparing
his plot for the destruction of the spoilers of his household — men
who are blind to heaven’s warnings and insolently ignore the
heaven-descended rules of hospitality. When the reekoning
comes, it is not a battle, but a massacre; and the vengeance
Ulysses and Telemachus wreak on the unfaithful servants is an
instance of “the disgusting” which the Greek dramatists ab¬
horred as inhuman, inartistic, un- Greek. Yet the suitors were
held to be punished according to their deserts, for the ill-treat-
Homer
55
merit of a suppliant is one of Hesiod’s five deadly sins. Ulysses
and Penelope are locked in one another’s arms at last, and Min¬
erva miraculously prolongs the first night of tears and rejoicing
after so many long years of hardship and sadness.
This is the story of the Odyssey. And after three thousand
years when men read it,
They hear like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.
§ 4
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS
None of the English translations of Homer have been com¬
pletely successful; naturally and necessarily so, because the
unique distinction of the Homeric epics is that they combine the
freshness and simplicity of a primitive race, of a phase of the
world’s childhood, with a perfect technique of expression, a com¬
plete mastery of thought over its medium. This combination, as
Matthew Arnold pointed out in his book On Translating
Horner^ involves the four chief qualities of the Homeric style:
rapidity; directness of thought; plainness of diction; and noble¬
ness. No translation, whether in verse or prose, has yet suc¬
ceeded in keeping all these four qualities throughout.
Prose translations, however faithful and well-written, can¬
not possibly give a just impression of the poetical beauty and
grandeur of the Homeric poems. The translations by famous
English poets have their merits as well as their demerits; all of
them fail to keep one or more of the characteristic Homeric
qualities. Chapman’s has several of these qualities; his four¬
teen-syllable line has something of the weight and movement of
the Homeric hexameter; his style is plain-spoken, fresh, vigor¬
ous, and to a certain extent rapid. On the whole, it seems to
deserve the noble sonnet Keats wrote in its honour. But it is
56
The Outline of Literature
full of the extravagance and fantastical humour of the Eliza¬
bethan age, and that painstaking reverence which prevented
the translators of the Bible from giving rein to their fancy did
not debar Chapman from “tormenting” the plain and direct
thought of Homer. In Hector’s famous speech at his parting
from Andromache, Homer makes him say: “Nor does my own
heart so bid me (to keep safe behind the walls) since I have
learned to be staunch always, and to fight among the foremost
of the Trojans, busy on behalf of my father’s great glory and
my own.” In Chapman’s version these plain, straightforward
thoughts become:
The spirit I first did breathe
Did never teach me this ; much less, since the contempt of death.
Was settled in me, and my mind knew what a worthy was.
Whose office is to lead in fight, and give no danger pass
Without improvement. In this fire must Hector’s trial shine:
Here must his country, father, friends, he in him made divine,
See how it is all teased out into Elizabethan fantastic subtlety!
Hector goes on to say: “For well I know this in my mind and
in my heart, the day will be when sacred Troy shall perish.”
Chapman’s version is:
And such a stormy day shall come, in mind and soul I know,
When sacred Troy shall shed her towers, for tears of overthrow.
Pope’s Translation
Pope is another famous poet who has attempted the perilous
task, but his literary style, better fitted for a sage’s philosophis¬
ing than to describe a soldier lighting his camp-fire, conveys no
sense of the plain naturalness of Homer. Yet in great moments
Pope is singularly successful; he then has the rapidity, the
nobleness, and often the simple, unromantic language which give
a partial impression of the original. A good average example
of Pope’s prodigious talent is this rendering of a passage in
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Homer
57
Sarpedon’s speech quoted a few days before he died by an Eng¬
lish statesman who had played his part in arranging that Treaty
of Paris which concluded the Seven Years’ War. It was Lord
Grenville, who at the time (1762) expressed in Homer’s words
the satisfaction he felt at helping to give his country peace.
Could ail our care elude the gloomy grave
Which claims no less the fearful than the brave,
For lust of fame I shall not vainly dare
In fighting fields, nor urge thy soul to war:
But since, alas ! ignoble age must come.
Disease, and death’s inexorable doom ;
The life which others pay, let us bestow,
And give to fame what we to nature owe.
Pope is too “literary” to convey any sense of the plain thinking
and plain diction of Homer, but his translation has great merits,
and the modern tendency is to grant it a much higher place than
that assigned by Matthew Arnold. William Cowper, that gentle
and perplexed spirit, has neither the force nor the rapidity of
Pope driving his heroic couplet as a Greek hero his chariot, and
he is at his best in “still life” descriptions.
Lord Derby’s Version
Lord Derby had not a tithe of Cowper’s poetic gift, but
his faithful version of the Iliad, an honest and untiring attempt,
as he said, “to infuse into an almost literal English version
something of the spirit, as weU as the simplicity, of the great
original,” has come much closer to success than any other. An
excellent example of this translation is the moving passage in
which Andromache sees from the walls of Troy the desecration
of her husband’s corpse by the triumphant Achilles — a dread¬
ful scene which impresses us all the more because it follows so
soon after the account of the poor lady’s arrangements to pro¬
vide Hector with a new embroidered robe and a hot bath on his
safe return from battle:
58
The Outline of Literature
Then from the house she rushed, like one distract,
With beating heart ; and with her went her maids.
But upon the tow’r she reach’d, where stood the crowd,
And mounted on the wall, and look’d around,
And saw the body trailing in the dust.
Which the fleet steeds were dragging to the ships.
And sudden darkness overspread her eyes ;
Backward she fell, and gasp’d her spirit away.
Far off were flung the adornments of her head,
The net, the fillet, and the woven bands;
The nuptial veil by golden Venus given.
That day when Hector of the glancing helm
Led from Eetion’s house his wealthy bride.
The sisters of her husband round her press’d.
And held, as in the deadly swoon she lay.
But when her breath and spirit returned again.
With sudden burst of anguish thus she cried:
“Hector, oh woe is me ! to misery
We both were born alike ; thou here in Troy,
In Priam’s royal palace ; I in Thebes,
By wooded Placos, in Eetion’s house.
Who nurs’d my infancy ; unhappy he,
Unhappier I! Would I had ne’er been born!”
Only a poet with Swinburne’s mastery of blank verse could hope
to make a nobler version of the Iliad than Lord Derby’s, and to
come nearer (yet still how far away!) to achieving the miracle of
pouring the old wine of Homer’s poetry into new metrical
bottles.
A very interesting experiment in Homeric translations is
the incomplete version of the Odyssey by William Morris, in
which that entrancing poet displays his power of rapid and
stirring narrative, his gift of creating a fresh, other-worldly at¬
mosphere, and his sympathy with the saga spirit to great advan¬
tage. He shows us the Homeric scenes, it is true, through a
misty glamour half-way between that of fairy-tales and that of
the stark Northern epics. But, after all, the Homeric heroes
were nearer to the Vikings in personality than any other ad¬
venturers of literature — they might almost be defined as types
Homer
59
midway between the Northmen and the Normans, for the history
revealed by picks rather than by pens clearly shows that they
had entered into the material civilisation of others to possess it,
and to enjoy a luxury and a lavishness which was in advance
of their spiritual growth. The moment when the suitors of
Penelope are visited by a sudden sense of impending doom, only
understood by Theoclymenus, is thus presented by the author of
The Earthly Paradise:
So he spake; but Pallas Athene amidst the wooers’ crew
Awoke undying laughter, and their minds astray she drew;
For now all they were laughing with the jaws of other men.
And flesh bloodstained they were eating, and the eyes of them as
then
Were filled with tears, and the thoughts of their souls into sorrow
strayed.
Then the godlike Theoclymenus he spake to them and said:
“Why bear ye this bale, ye unhappy? For your heads and your
faces outright,
And the knees that are beneath you are wrapt about in night.
And let loose is the voice of wailing, and wetted with tears are
your cheeks.
And blood the hall-walls staineth and the goodly panels streaks ;
And the porch is full of man-shapes and fulfilled is the garth of
the stead.
As they went ’neath the dusk and the darkness, and the sun from
the heavens is dead;
And lo ! how the mist of evil draws up and all about !”
Certainly we get the same eerie impression of an omen, felt
as a warning only by the righteous man, which is communicated
in Homer’s actual words. This Morrisian version is unequalled
for the vigour and luminous quality of all its open-air passages.
Some critics take exception to the occasional somewhat undigni¬
fied and harsh renderings of stock epithets and are jarred when
the man of many wiles is styled “the shifty.” But it seems to
have all the merits of Chapman’s translation and to lack the
latter’s all-pervading fault — the teasing-out of the plain thought
60
The Outline of Literature
of the original and the elaboration of its plain diction into Eliza¬
bethan subtlety and ornateness.
Those who wish to get as clear an insight into the noble
lucidness of Homeric poetry (which, none the less, is like a
diamond in that it cannot be seen through) as is possible without
a knowledge of Greek cannot do better than procure Lord
Derby’s and William Morris’s translations, of which inexpensive
editions can be procured.
Butcher and Lang
As for prose translations, they abound, and, though un¬
couth in proportion to their literal precision, will help the student
to follow the Homeric narrative in exact detail. Butcher and
Lang’s translation of the Odyssey at times rises to prose-
poetry. And the curiously matter-of-fact translation in prose
(at times too prosaic) by Samuel Butler, the great ironist and
author of Erewhon, is an excellent tonic against the conventional
“translatorese” which lends an air of unreality to the very real
and easily realised life of the Homeric poems. Butler’s at¬
tempted proof that the Odyssey was written by a woman, none
other than the wise and beautiful Nausicaa, must have been be¬
gun as an essay in his peculiar irony, but he seems in the end to
have persuaded himself of the truth of his fantastical theory.
5
HOMERIC SIMILES
The use of simile in the Homeric poems is a characteristic
feature which has been imitated by all makers of the “artificial
epic” from Virgil to Milton. The Homeric similes are not
mere decorations, like the pictures in an illuminated missal.
They are dramatic; that is, they arise out of the action and add
impressiveness to what follows, by leading the thoughts of the
reader up through some similar, hut less familiar, picture to a
keener realisation of the wonder or terror or pitifulness of a
(National Gallery, London.)
Paris had to decide which goddess was the most beautiful — Juno, Minerva, or Venus. He gave the golden apple to Venus, with the
natural result that the other two goddesses became his bitter enemies.
Photo: RischgiU Collection.
GEORGE CHAPMAN
Homer
61
scene or an event. They are like the illustrations to a book the
inner significance of which has been grasped by the illustrator,
who yet allows his imagination to sport with the details of his
picture. “Secure of the main likeness,” comments Pope, “Homer
makes no scruple to play with the circumstances.” His similes
thus afford a contrast to those in the Old Testament (for ex¬
ample, Job’s comparison of the inconstancy of friends to the
failure of water in the desert, when springs on which the cara¬
vans relied are found to be dry), for the Hebraic similes dis¬
pense with non-essential details. The Iliad contains about a
hundred and eighty full-length similes, pictures complete in
themselves, and the Odyssey only forty. This difference is in¬
evitable, for the Odyssey, though full of marvels and marvellous
adventures, has not nearly so many moments of tense excite¬
ment — dramatic “thrills” as it were — as the Iliad with its war¬
like action and movements of armed hosts in a restricted arena.
The range of Homeric simile extends from the lowliest to
the loftiest matters. Like the Old Testament writers, Homer
delights in a homely image; thus, like them, he finds similitudes
in the work of the threshing flood and the winnowing fan. The
Hebrew chronicler (in 2 Kings xxi. 13) writes: “I will wipe
Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish; wiping it, and turning it up¬
side down”; and Homer finds as homely a similitude, when he
compares the obstinate Ajax, beset by enemies, to an ass which
has got into a cornfield and is being cudgelled in vain by boys.
Sometimes Homer uses a sequence of similes; as when, in a de¬
scription of the Greeks leaving the quarters by the ships for the
place of assembly, they are successively likened to fire devouring
a forest (because of their gleaming armour), to a flight of
clamouring birds (because of their noise and haste), to innumer¬
able leaves (when they are mustered in a fluctuating mass), to
buzzing flies (as an excited hum is heard from the assembly),
and to flocks of goats parted by goat-herds (when they are
marshalled in divisions by their leaders).
62
The Outline of Literature
Again, in order to heighten the terror of warlike episodes by
contrasting them with small, innocent affairs, he tells us that
Apollo throws down the Greek rampart as easily as a child de¬
stroys its sand-castle on the sea-beaeh, or makes Achilles rebuke
his comrade Petroclus for weeping like a little girl running by
her mother’s side and clinging to her dress, and looking up in
tears until she is picked up and carried.
Majestical Similes
His more majestical images are suggested by fire — es¬
pecially, conflagrations in a mountain forest — torrents, snow¬
storms, lightning, and winds battling together as so often occurs
in the land-locked Algean. A fine example of the majestical
simile is found when Minerva invests Achilles with her eegis, thus
encircling his head with a golden cloud from which a flame is
made to shoot forth. The Rev. W. C. Green’s translation of
The Similes of Homer's Iliad contains the following fine version
of this most striking simile:
As from an island city, seen afar,
The smoke goes up to heaven, when foes besiege:
And all day long in grievous battle strive
The leaguered townsmen from this city wall:
But soon, at set of sun, blaze after blaze,
Are lit the beacon-fires, and high the glare
Shoots up for all that dwell around to see.
That they may come with ships to aid their stress :
Such light blazed heavenward from Achilles’ head.
The lion, by the way, provides no fewer than thirty com¬
parisons in the Iliad, the most notable of whieh likens Ajax,
defending the body of Patroclus, to a lion guarding his cubs,
glaring in his might and drawing down his brows. These similes
are often jewels of history. The image of the beleaguered island-
city, kindling its fiery S.O.S. to bring help from its neighbours,
reminds us that it was an age when such raids were common, as
Homer
63
waves of armed emigrants came down overland from Central
Europe and, having built or seized ships, sought to acquire foot¬
holds in the Southern seas by piratical attacks. And the fre¬
quency of leonine similes tells us by implication that the lion
was a familiar beast on the mainland — a fact confirmed by Hero¬
dotus and Xenophon, who state that he was still met with in
Macedonia, Thessalay, and Thrace in the fifth century b.c.
Homer indeed gives us history as well as a story, and we are
now in a position, thanks to the wonderful results of excavation
since Schliemann’s epoch-making discoveries, to detach the his¬
torical from the legendary and imaginative matter, and to make
a picture, correct in its main outlines, of the real Homeric world.
Homer, the book, is not an artistic myth; it is the record, how¬
soever distorted and overlaid and “restored,” of a life that was
actually lived by men more like than unlike ourselves.
§ 6
THE HOMERIC WORLD
Something must be said as to the great controversy started
by Wolf’s Prolegomena (published at Halle in 1795) as to
the way in which the Iliad and the Odyssey came into being
and attained their present form. Wolf’s theory was an expres¬
sion of the all-questioning spirit that, in the domain of politics,
broke out with explosive force in the French Revolution, and, in
the sphere of historical criticism, prompted Ihne and Niebuhr to
show the legendary nature of the early annals of Rome. It
attempted to prove four main points. The author contended
that (1) the Homeric poems were composed without the aid of
writing, which is not mentioned in them and, in 950 b.c., was
either unknown to the Greeks or not yet used in the making of
literary records, and that the poems out of which the two epics
were made up, were passed on by oral recitation, during which
process they were much altered; (2) when written down, about
64
The Outline of Literature
550 B.C., “revisers” and literary critics went on polishing the
poems and altering them to suit their tastes in art; (3) the artis¬
tic unity of both epics is the result of this artificial treatment in
later ages; (4) the original lays out of which the epics are built
up were the work of several authors, though it would never he
possible to show where the component parts begin and end.
There is nothing dogmatic in Wolf’s famous book (which is
written in Latin) , and he did not deny the existence of a personal
Homer, a poet of genius who “began the weaving of the web.”
Moreover, he admits that the argument convinced his head but
not his heart, so to speak. Turning from his theory to read the
poems once more as poetry, plunging into the clear rushing
stream of the story yet again, the harmonious consistency of it
all renews the old irresistible impression of a personal unity, and
he is angry with the reasoned scepticism which has destroyed
his belief in a single master-poet. Into the controversial maze
created by his book it is impossible to enter here. The ancient
conception of authorship must be abandoned; it is comparable
with the faith of simple folk who believe that the Bible in its
present form was handed down out of Heaven. The very name
“Homer,” which means “piecer-together,” is sufficient proof that
the belief in a single authorship, one and indivisible, cannot be
maintained. And every part of the poems bears the marks of
revision; for example, it is abundantly clear that barbaric epi¬
sodes have been toned down to suit the taste of later and gentler
ages when the Greek horror of “the disgusting” had so prevailed
as to insist that murders should take place off the stage.
In the long and still unsettled controversy as to the origin
and authorship, the poets — and the professional scholars in whom
something of a poet survives — have always leant to the side of
personal unity. In England the impression has always pre¬
vailed, and is perhaps gathering force to-day, that less import¬
ance is to be attached to the discrepancies with which the
scholar-critic is chiefly concerned than to the sympathetic in-
Homer
65
sight of men of poetic genius such as Schiller, who called Wolf’s
theory “barbaric,” and Goethe, who, though at first inclined to
accept it, on second thought said in a letter to Schiller: “I am
more than ever convinced of the unity and indivisibility of the
poem (the Iliad) The opinion of Matthew Arnold, a ripe
scholar as well as a poet full of the Greek spirit, is weighty in¬
deed :
The insurmountable obstacle to believing the Iliad a con¬
solidated work of several poets is this — that the work of
great masters is unique; and the Iliad has a great master’s
genuine stamp, and that stamp is the grand style.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The beginner studying Homer will do well to read such books as W.
E. Gladstone’s Homer, and Sir R. C. Jebb’s Homer: an Introduction to the
Iliad and Odyssey; and also the excellent volumes on the Odyssey and the
Iliad by the Rev. W. Lucas Collins.
Other books are:
Dr. Walter Leaf’s A Companion to the Iliad for English Readers;
Homer and History; and Troy, a Study in Homeric Geography.
Andrew Lang’s Homer and his Age; Homer and the Epic; and
The World of Homer.
Matthew Arnold’s essay On Translating Homer.
W. E. Gladstone’s Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age; Land¬
marks of Homeric Study; and Homeric Synchronism; an Enquiry into the
Time and Place of Homer.
Recent books on Homer are J. A. K. Thomson’s Studies in the Odyssey;
F. M. Stawell’s Homer and the Iliad: an Essay to Determine the Scope and
Character of the Original Poem.
Mention must also be made of the two books by Samuel Butler (the
author of Erewhon), The Authoress of the Odyssey, in which Butler expresses
the view that the Odyssey was written by a woman, and The Humour of
Homer.
Important modern translations of Homer are:
The Iliad done into English Prose, by Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf,
and Ernest Myers.
The Odyssey done into English Prose, by S. H. Butcher and
Andrew Lang.
The Iliad in English Verse, by A. S. Way (2 vols.)
VOL. I— S
66
The Outline of Literature
The Odyssey in English Verse, by A. S. Way.
Other modern translations are: The Odyssey translated into English
Verse, by J. W. Mackail; The Odyssey translated into English in the Original
Metre, by Francis Caulfeild; The Odyssey, a line for line translation, in the
Metre of the Original, by H. B. Cotterill. William Morris, the famous author
of “The Earthly Paradise,” translated the “Odyssey” into English verse
(Longmans), while Samuel Butler, author of Erewhon and The Way of All
Flesh, did a prose version of the “Odyssey.”
There are, of course, many older translations, notably, Alexander Pope’s
versions of the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey,” the renderings of the “Iliad” and
the “Odyssey” by George Chapman, the Elizabethan poet and dramatist,
William Cowper’s (the poet) English blank verse translation of the “Iliad,” of
which there is, apparently, no modern edition. The American poet, William
Cullen Bryant, did a blank verse version of the “Iliad” and Sir John F. W.
Herschel a version of the “Iliad” in English hexameters.
There is also the version of the “Iliad” in English blank verse by Ed¬
ward, Earl of Derby and the translation of the “Odyssey” in 2 vols. in the
Loeb Classical Library.
Ill
THE STORY OF THE BIBLE
BY E. W. BARNES, Sc.D., F.R.S., CANON OF WESTMINSTER
67
tf •
THE STORY OF THE BIBLE
BY E. W. BARNES, Sc.D., F.R.S., CANON OF WESTMINSTER
The collection of ancient books which we eall the Bible is
of incomparable value and importance. It has done
more for the moral and religious progress of mankind
than any other literature. As a record of the most significant
process in human civilisation, of clear thought and right feeling
developing together for a thousand years, it is unique. Some
books in it reach levels of artistic excellence which have never
been surpassed. And, moreover, the translation into English
which we know as the Authorised Version is the foremost classic
in our language.
If we inquire why the Bible can be regarded as a single
surpassingly great book, the answer must be that there is in it
unity, no less than sincerity, beauty, and strength. It has really
but one theme — ^man’s search for God. Behind history and
poetry, prophecy and drama, gospel and epistle, there lies an
intense eagerness to understand God’s ways, to realise His na¬
ture, to feel His presence. Yet, fortunately, the Bible is not a
collection of theological treatises. It is as varied as the life of
man, a mirror of human endurance and weakness, triumph and
failure. Above all it is a living history of spiritual progress.
For this reason, from end to end of the Bible, there are books
and passages of supreme excellence. They were written by men
passionately in earnest, inspired by a pure and lofty faith, and
convinced that they bore a great message for mankind. Conse-
69
70
The Outline of Literature
quently the language of these men is clear and simple, their
thought direct and vigorous. Like all great artists they are
economical, sparing in their use of words. Their work has a
quality which “finds” us, a something which we term inspira¬
tion. Coleridge, who loved the Bible and was more than ordi¬
narily sensitive to its appeal, said of it: “In every generation
and wherever the light of revelation has shone, men of all ranks,
conditions, and states of mind have found in the Bible a corre¬
spondent for every movement towards the better felt in their
own hearts.”
A Book of Many Books
We must always remember that the Bible is not one book:
it is many. In the Old Testament there is the best literature
produced by the Hebrew race during well-nigh a thousand years.
The New Testament, on the other hand, contains the literature,
not of a nation, but of a movement. It is a collection of Greek
works, written within less than a century, which describe the
life of Jesus of Nazareth and the early development of the
Christian Faith. But the connection between the Old and New
Testaments is intimate. Each is a product of Hebrew religious
genius. Of the writers in the New Testament, all seem to have
been Jews, save possibly St. Luke, and his racial origin is doubt¬
ful. Moreover, to the historian, Christ is in the direct line of
the great Hebrew prophets. St. Paul, though he became the
Apostle to the Gentiles, thought as a Jew and not as a Greek.
St. John used Greek ideas, but he was a spiritual descendant of
Ezekiel. Christianity, in fact, was a natural outgrowth of
Judaism.
To the student of history and of religious thought, the New
Testament is the most important part of the Bible; yet, as litera¬
ture, it is on the whole inferior to the earlier writings. By the
time of Christ, the Greek language, as spoken by the Jews of
the Levant, had lost its purity. Not even the sincerity and
In this picture the artist has painted the desert from which the Hebrews originally came. He depicts the ‘‘purple crags of Moab
and the pale ashes of Gomorrah.”
MOSES: PROPHET, LAWGIVER, STATESMAN, AS CON¬
CEIVED BY MICHAEL ANGELO
The Story of the Bible
71
enthusiasm of the 'New Testament writers could make it a per¬
fect medium for literary art. Moreover, between words and
thought a natural harmony exists only if the ideas which a people
develop are expressed in their own tongue. When Jewish re¬
ligious understanding was poured into a Greek mould, such
harmony was marred. Throughout the New Testament there
are passages which are astonishingly fine; but, speaking gener¬
ally, we miss the sustained excellence of many Old Testament
books. Wordsworth said truly that “the grand storehouses of
enthusiastic and meditative imagination . . . are the propheti¬
cal and lyrical parts of the Holy Scriptures.” Because we de¬
scribe such storehouses and show how they were built and filled,
we shall of necessity give to the New Testament less considera¬
tion than its intrinsic importance merits. It would be foreign to
our present purpose to discuss the Christian faith. We seek to
show why the Bible is a classic of literature, permanently enjoy¬
able and permanently helpful; why a distinguished agnostic like
Huxley could call it “the Magna Charta of the poor and the
oppressed.”
§ 1
THE ISRAELITES
The People of the Old Testament
Who were the people who made the Old Testament, and
whence came their religious genius? The beginning of Egypt¬
ian history, so far as our present knowledge goes, can be placed
about 5000 b.c. Two thousand years later there were in Baby¬
lonia and Egypt two empires, already highly civilised, well-
organised, and powerful. For some time a race called the
Sumerians held the country of the Euphrates. They ceased to
be dominant and their place was taken by Semites. To the
Semitic stock the nomad tribes of desert Arabia belonged. Pos¬
sibly there was some Semitic blood also among the people of
72
The Outline of Literature
Egypt; but the differences which separate Babylonian and
Egyptian art, letters, and thought point to fundamental differ¬
ences of racial origin. Between the empires of the Euphrates
and the Nile there lay the Arabian desert and a small stretch of
fertile country near the Mediterranean, anciently called Canaan,
which we now know as Palestine. The Canaanites, who in¬
habited the land, were also Semites; and at a remote date Baby¬
lonian influence over Canaan was dominant. Then there came
a time when Egypt expanded her borders and conquered
Canaan. Some famous letters discovered in 1887 at Tell-el-
Amarna belong approximately to the period 1400-1370 b.c.^
From them we learn that Canaan at that time had been an elab¬
orately organised province, paying taxes to Egypt; but that all
was falling into disorder because Egypt’s power was waning.
About the year 1230 b.c. “certain clans of a nomad race known
as Hebrews, on whom some of the Pharaohs had imposed forced
labour, broke away from Egypt under the leadership of Moses,
and returned to their nomadic life in the oases of the desert south
of Palestine.” These clans, whom we also know as the children
of Israel, were Semites, closely akin in language and customs to
the Canaanites and to many tribes of the Arabian desert. They
were probably but small; it may even be that the men in them
did not number more than a few thousands.^ They lived for a
generation in the wilderness and then set out to conquer the fer¬
tile country of Canaan. Their task was made possible by the
fact that Egyptian rule over Canaan was at an end. But, though
^ These letters, for the most part, are in the Assyrian language, and written in
cuneiform characters. They were addressed to the Egyptian kings Amen-hotep III
and IV ; and were found in the tomb of a secretary to those monarchs. The tomb
is near the Nile, about 180 miles south of Memphis.
^ It is always necessary to be cautious in accepting numbers given in ancient
documents. Errors, due to carelessness of copyists and other causes, are very likely
to arise. Professor Flinders Petrie has examined the census lists of the Israelite
tribes given in the Book of Numbers, chapters 1 and 26. He makes the ingenious
suggestion that aldf has two meanings, a “thousand” and “a group”; and therefore,
when we have the figure 32,200, it originally meant 32 tents containing 200 people.
He thus reaches the conclusion that the numbers of Israelites in the two lists are
respectively 5,600 and 6,730. '
The Story of the Bible
73
they established themselves firmly in the hilly country, the
Canaanites continued to hold the plains. A long period of war
and disorder only ceased when, under the Israelite king, David,
Canaanites and Israelites were fused into one people. After
the year 1000 b.c. Hebrew culture, and especially Hebrew re¬
ligion, were nominally dominant.
About the same time that the Hebrews entered Canaan, the
Philistines seem to have conquered the maritime plain near
Gaza. These Philistines were not Semites but Aryan seafarers.
Probably they came from the coast of Asia Minor near Crete,
that centre of an early and wonderful civilisation revealed by the
discoveries of Sir Arthur Evans. Old Testament history shows
plainly that David used the Philistines in establishing his king¬
dom; and archgeologists hold that through Philistine influence
“a remnant of the dying glories of Crete” contributed to the
progress of Hebrew culture.
Moses
Whence did the Hebrews get their religion, and what was
its original character? The questions are difficult to answer.
Renan asserted that the Semite of the desert, “living where na¬
ture is so uniform, must be a monotheist.” But there is no evi¬
dence for this theory; and all other Semites, when they reached
countries like Syria and the Euphrates valley where nature is
luxuriant, quickly developed an elaborate and sometimes gross
polytheism. We must accept the Biblical tradition that in the
wilderness, from Moses, the Hebrews received the germ of that
moral monotheism which has been of incalculable value to man¬
kind. Moses must have been supremely great, a natural leader
of men and a religious genius. His mind must have been crea¬
tive, his character austere, his religious insight profound. As
the Hebrew prophets, from Elijah in the ninth century on¬
wards, developed Hebrew monotheism, they believed themselves
to be the true heirs of the Mosaic tradition. Their strength lay
74
The Outline of Literature
in their conviction that they were fighting to preserve the best
elements of Israelite culture from contamination by ideas and
practices of Canaanite origin.
It cannot be held that JMoses had derived his religion from
Egypt. The Egyptians practised circumcision; but Moses, and
those of his followers who were born in the wilderness, were un¬
circumcised. Further, the prophets believed that they were true
to the teaching of Moses in proclaiming that J ehovah was God
of the whole earth; and most certainly there is no echo in the
Ten Commandments of the many gods of Egyptian polytheism.
Nowhere does the difference between Egyptian and Israelite
religion appear more markedly than in connection with the doc¬
trine of a future life. Neither in the teaching of Moses, nor in
that of any great Hebrew prophet before the year 600 b.c., is
there mention of a life after death or of judgment to come; but
Egyptian religion is dominated by such beliefs. In fact, the
originality of Moses, the independence of his religious insight,
his direct inspiration, appear unchallengeable. When the Jews
in later ages appealed to the authority of Moses, they rightly
claimed that Moses was the source of the faith that made the
Jewish nation.
Professor Kennett believes that monogamy was an element
in the ethical system of Moses. “There is not a hint, in any of
the prophets, to suggest that they approved of polygamy, and
there are several passages that imply monogamy. Here, again,
it is probable that the prophets’ ideas about marriage belong to
the general tradition of the teaching of Moses.”
The earlier books of the Bible result from so many combina¬
tions and alterations at different times that it is hard to form a
definite opinion as to this and many other questions. For in¬
stance, we find it difficult to show conclusively that Moses was a
monotheist. The first commandment, “I am the Lord thy God;
thou shalt have none other gods but me,” proves that the He¬
brews were to worship Jehovah and Him alone. But was He
Photo: Braun, CUment 6“ Co.
.“MOSES BREAKING THE TABLES OF THE LAW,” BY REMBRANDT VAN RYN
Moses, alike prophet, lawgiver, and statesman, prepared the way for Hebrew unity and
Hebrew monotheism.
Reproduced hy special permission.
“and there was a great cry in EGYPT,” BY ARTHUR HACKER, A.R.A.
In the Feast of the Passover the Jews still commemorate the death of the first-born which preceded their exodus from Egypt.
The Story of the Bible
75
merely the God of the Hebrews, just as other nations had their
tribal gods; or was He the one and only God of the whole earth?
Probably Moses, like the great prophets in subsequent eenturies,
held the latter view ; but popular opinion, after the fusion of the
Israelite and Canaanite races, thought it natural that different
peoples should have different gods. So, apparently without of¬
fending public opinion, Solomon built “an high place for
Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the mount that is before
Jerusalem,” together with other altars to heathen deities. Alike
in this action and in his polygamy we see popular Canaanite
custom struggling successfully against the higher Israelite ideal.
So far from being surprised at this uprising we remain amazed
that it was not permanently successful. The census statistics of
David and Rehoboam indicate that the population of the early
monarchy was 1,300,000. A few thousand Israelites of the
Exodus could not possibly have increased to such a number in
a couple of centuries. The people over whom David ruled must
have been largely of non-Israelite origin, and the Bible records
tell us explicitly that in his army foreigners were numerous.
In fact, “the numbers of Israel were enlarged by accretion.”
May we not deem it “providential” that Hebrew religion in
Palestine did not suffer the same sort of corruption as the
religion which the Aryan invaders brought into ancient India?
To understand the Hebrew prophets and their fierce indig¬
nation against Canaanite worship we must bear in mind that
with such worship was associated the religious immorality which
disgraces Southern Indian temples at the present day. They
were fired by a moral indignation against cruelty and lust. The
Canaanites and Phoenicians spoke practically the same language
as the Hebrews: all were Semites. “Hannibal is just ‘the grace
of Baal.’ Put Jah (Jehovah) for Baal, and you have the He¬
brew Hananiah; or, reverse the word, and you have Johanan,
the Greek loannes and our John.” But Phoenicians and Cartha¬
ginians had no ethical or religious message for mankind. The
76
The Outline of Literature
practice of human sacrifice was in earlier times not unknown
among either them or the Canaanites ; and. in their temples ob¬
scene idols and religious prostitution went together. Had Carth¬
age conquered Rome it would have been a curse to human
civilisation. That Christianity conquered the Roman Empire
was a blessing to mankind. The difference between the blessing
and the curse measures the importance of the work of the He¬
brew prophets. The Old Testament, read aright, is the story of
their work and its outcome.
§ 2
THE BEGINNING OF THE BIBLE: THE LAW
The Books of the Old Testament
To read the Old Testament aright we must know when, and
by whom, its books were written. The first part of the Old
Testament to be regarded as peculiarly sacred and inspired was
“The Law,” the first five books of the Bible. These books, as
we all know, are Genesis, Eocodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy. In our Bibles they are, in their titles, ascribed
to Moses. We begin with “the first book of Moses called Gene¬
sis.” The Jews, in the time of Christ, also ascribed these books
to Moses ; but they did not then bear our modern titles. Genesis
was denoted merely by its first words, “In the beginning.” Until
a century ago the belief lasted that Moses wrote practically the
whole Pentateuch. There is now an almost complete agreement
among scholars that it took its present form after the Exile of
the Jews and before the return of Ezra, that is to say, between
the years 600 b.c. and 450 b.c. The Law was probably pro¬
mulgated by Ezra soon after he came to Jerusalem from Baby¬
lon, and was speedily deemed authoritative and saered.
Moreover, modern scholars are convinced that, in the Penta¬
teuch, there is little that goes back to the time of Moses. It is,
in its present form, the result of a series of religious reforma-
The Story of the Bible
77
tions; and the whole framework was constructed by a school of
Priestly writers in Babylonia during the Exile.
These views differ so widely from those which were formerly
accepted that many who have not weighed the evidence regard
them as fanciful. The whole of the evidence can only be mar¬
shalled in an elaborate treatise; but a single important illustra¬
tion may show its strength. Under the final system described
in the Book of Leviticus all religious worship was concentrated
at J erusalem. There were no local altars or shrines where sacri-
• fices could be offered to God. “If Moses had left such a system
as a public code specially entrusted to the priests and leaders
of the nation, that code must have influenced at least the elite of
Israel.” But the prophets before the Captivity know nothing
of it. Even when Solomon built the Temple at Jerusalem, he
did not conform to the law of Leviticus. The two brazen pillars
which stood at the porch would have been forbidden by that law,
for they were pagan emblems common in Canaanite and Phoeni¬
cian religion. For centuries also the keepers of the sanctuary
were uncircumcised foreigners and not “sons of Levi,” as the
law ordained. There is, in short, overwhelming proof that be¬
fore the Exile the law of Leviticus was not merely disregarded:
it was unknown.
When such a result has been reached, the way is open for a
right understanding of the Pentateuch. This understanding
has been reached by an elaborate study of the literary styles of
the various writers and groups of writers whose work survives;
by paying attention to the use of critical words, such as those for
“God” ; by investigating the development of religious ritual and
thought; and by minute antiquarian research. A language
changes as the centuries go by: we cannot write like Swift or
Addison, nor could they write like Shakespeare, nor Shakespeare
like Chaucer. Of course, there is always some uncertainty in
literary analysis; but the main outlines of the following sketch
may be accepted with a large measure of confidence.
78
The Outline of Literature
Probably that part of the Old Testament which has the
closest connection with Moses is the Book of the Covenantj pre¬
served in Exodus, chapters 20—23. It contains, besides the Ten
Commandments, “a few simple rules for worship, allowing free¬
dom to meet God at many altars and giving no direction as to
who shall perform the priestly service.” There are also simple
civil laws, in which justice and kindness are happily combined.
The Priestly Writers
A large part of the more interesting material in the Book of •
Genesis is due to two writers, whom scholars call J and E. These
symbols stand for "Judcean” and '‘Ephraimite’' respectively, and
mean that they belonged to south and north Israel. J probably
flourished about the middle of the ninth century b.c., and E
somewhat less than a century later. “Of all Hebrew historians
J is the most gifted and the most brilhant. He excels in the
power of delineating life and character. In ease and grace his
narratives are unsurpassed. He writes without effort, and with¬
out conscious art.” To him we owe the story of Eden and the
Fall, of Abraham’s pleading for Sodom, of the wooing of
Rebekah. E does not write so brilliantly as J. He has not the
same felicity of expression or poetic vigour. To him is due the
history of Joseph in Egypt. But the story of the selling of
Joseph with its many inconsistencies is the result of a somewhat
artless combination of narratives of J and E, which differed in
that each assigned the blame of the transaction to ancestors of
the other. The story of the Flood is similarly full of inconsis¬
tencies. Its present form results from combining a story of J
with material due to a group of writers whom scholars call P.
These men supplied the whole framework of the Pentateuch,
and gave it its flnal form. They were priests, living in Babylonia
during the Exile ; conscientious, prosaic annalists. They describe
with relish the different ceremonial institutions of the Hebrews.
They take a consistent pleasure in chronological and other
Reproduced by permission of the Artist.
“JOSEPH INTERPRETS PHARAOH’s DREAMS,’’ BY HAROLD SPEED
Under the great eighteenth dynasty in Egypt Semitic influence was strong. The story of Joseph preserved the memory of this
epoch in Hebrew tradition.
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Reproduced by kind permission of the British and Foreign Bible Society,
A PAGE OF THE Codex Sifiaiticus
This Codex is one of the oldest manuscripts of the Greek Bible, and was written about
A.D. 380.
The Story of the Bible
79
statistical data. Whenever we come across a passage beginning
“These are the generations of. . . . we may safely assume that
it is the handiwork of P.
One of the Priestly writers was the author of the opening
chapter of the Bible, where his style is unmistakable. There is
a second and not wholly consistent account of Creation given in
Genesis, chapter 2 (vv. 4-7). This is due to J, and so is some
three centuries older than P’s narrative. The first Creation story
probably reflects the influence of Babylonian scientific specula¬
tion. Though the progressive development of modern science
has rendered it obsolete, it is worthy of our respect, and its noble
monotheistic setting is of enduring value.
In thus describing the work of P, we have passed over an
earlier writer to whom the most valuable part of the Pentateuch
is due. This is D, the author of the great sermon ascribed to
Moses which makes the hook Deuteronomy . J and E may be
regarded as forerunners of the first succession of prophets,
Amos, Hosea, and Micah. D is, in language and thought,
closely allied to Jeremiah; and he must have lived about the year
650 B.c. His work was almost certainly the book discovered “in
the house of God by Hilkiah in the year 621 b.c.,” which served
as a basis for the reformation of Jewish religion under King
Josiah. Written very likely when the heathen reaction under
King Manasseh seemed finally to have destroyed the fine re¬
ligious tradition which went back to Moses, Deuteronomy shows
rich and true spiritual insight. Ritual, indeed, has developed
since the Book of the Covenant; but formalism has not quenched
the fire of the spirit. We must not assume that D, in writing
his book, created legislation unheard of before. He probably
gathered together what he regarded as the best developments of
the past, combined them with exhortations due to his own religious
fervour, and then passed away leaving his book as a legacy to
a happier time. Christians will never forget that from it
comes the first half of the Golden Rule. “Hear, O Israel, the
80
Outline of Literature
liOrd our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
might.”
Alongside the Book of Deuteronomy we may put an
ancient document embedded in the Book of Leviticus, chapters
17-26. This is called by scholars the Law of Holiness. It has
been altered by the Priestly editors of the Pentateuch, but there
are many indications which point to the influence of the prophet
Ezekiel. It resembles the Book of the Covenant in that the laws
in it are in the main addressed to the people, not to the priest.
Its religious inspiration is magniflcent. In it we find the second
half of the Golden Buie, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself.” Throughout the ages mystics have felt the appeal of
its words, “And I will walk among you, and will be your God,
and ye shall be my people”; and the mission of Israel to
humanity was never more finely expressed than in the sen¬
tence, “And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the Lord am holy,
and have separated you from the peoples that ye should be
mine.”
F or the convenience of readers we give a short table to show
the main sources from which the Pentateuch was constructed.
Book of the
Covenant
Simple civil and religious laws
of great antiquity.
Origin probably with Moses
about 1200 B.c.
J
A historian of the Southern
Kingdom of Judah.
About 850 B.c.
E
A historian of the Northern
Kingdom of Israel.
About 780 B.c.
D
The writer who inspired the
reformation under King
Josiah and to whom the Book
of Deuteronomy is due.
About 650 B.c.
Law of Holiness
A code of ritual and civil law
of great religious value,
probably compiled by a
friend or follower of Ezekiel.
About 570 B.c.
P
The school of writers in Baby¬
lonia who finally gave the
Pentateuch its present form.
Between 550 and 450 b.c.
The Story of the Bible
81
§ 3
THE GROWTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
The Hebrew Bible began with "The Law"' To under¬
stand its further growth we must recognise that the order of the
Old Testament books in our Bibles is not that which a strict
Jew in the time of Christ would have deemed satisfactory. We
shall later mention some of the great translations of the Hebrew
scriptures into foreign languages. It is sufficient now to say
that the standard Jewish translation into Greek is called the
Septuagint; and the standard Christian translation into Latin,
the Vulgate. Roughly speaking, the order of the books of the
Old Testament in English Bibles is that of the Vulgate. This
order in turn was derived from the Septuagint, the authors of
which apparently tried to group the books according to their
subject-matter. They thus obscured a distinction between two
groups of books which in the time of Christ was of real import¬
ance. They mixed up the group known as "The Prophets" with
the group called "The Writings"
“The Prophets” was the Jewish description of the follow¬
ing group of books:
\
Joshua Kings 1 and 2 Isaiah
Judges Jeremiah Twelve Minor Prophets
Samuel 1 and 2 Ezekiel
It thus contained, according to Jewish reckoning, eight books.
We have to remember that these “books” were written on rolls
of parchment or papyrus; eight such rolls of fairly convenient
size made up “The Prophets,” just as five rolls made up “The
Law.”
“The Writings” was the description of the group formed
by the remaining books in the English Old Testament, namely:
Ruth Job Ecclesiastes
Psalms Proverbs Song of Solomon
VOL. I — 6
82
The Outline of Literature
Lamentations Esther Chronieles 1 and 2
Daniel Ezra and Nehemiah
This group thus contained eleven ‘^hooks ; and the total number
of hooks of the Hebrew Bible was thus twenty-four.
It seems at first sight mere pedantry to spend time in sepa¬
rating “The Prophets” from “The Writings.” But in the time
of Christ “The Writings” had not won the same sort of recog¬
nition as was given to the Law and the Prophets. They could
not he read as Scripture at the Synagogue services. They were
on trial, as it were, slowly establishing a claim to he regarded as
equally sacred and inspired. When Christ said, “Whatsoever
ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them,
for this is the law and the prophets,” He implied that the one
command summed up the whole of Bible teaching. For such
teaching it was not necessary to go to “The Writings.”
§ 4
THE PROPHETS
Eight, or according to our reckoning twenty-one, hooks
made up the group called “The Prophets.” When were they
first regarded as Scripture? The process was, no doubt, gradual.
Pious Jews, who venerated the Law, found in the Prophets
spiritual inspiration which deepened the religious meaning of the
Temple ritual which the Law had established. The Law was
primarily ecclesiastical; but religious men are seldom satisfied
solely by an ecclesiastical system. They demand the witness of
history to God, records of personal faith and the fire of prophetic
enthusiasm. Whenever religion is earnest, the Prophet takes
his place by the side of the Priest. So, gradually but irresisti¬
bly, “the Prophets” supplemented “the Law.” Probably dur¬
ing the third century b.c. a lesson from the one group of books
was added to a lesson from the other in the synagogue services.
DAVID, THE GREATEST OF THE HEBREW KINGS
Michael Angelo has here depicted the Jewish hero in his youth¬
ful prime.
ISAIAH: THE STATESMAN AND PROPHET ROUND WHOSE NAME THE
FINEST RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF JUDAISM WAS GATHERED
Photo: Anderson.
From Michael Angelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.
The Story of the Bible
83
just as in Christian churches a lesson from the New Testament
follows a lesson from the Old. By 250 b.c. the Prophets seem
to have become Seripture. Henceforth the history and preaeh-
ing of the men who had kept inviolate all that was best in the
faith of Moses, who during centuries of struggle had developed
the finest monotheism the world has known — such history and
preaching were sacred.
The Loss of Early Documents
There is confusion in the varied literature which makes up
“The Prophets.” The books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and
Kings narrate the history of the Israelites from the Exodus to
the Exile, and the earlier part of this history is of doubtful value.
The fact is not surprising. During the Exile valuable documents
were lost. Bolls wore out. Fragments of history and prophecy
of different ages were gathered together into new rolls. The
proeess of combination, 'of revision, and of more or less drastie
“editing,” which produced the Pentateueh, also affected the
Historical and Prophetical books. We naturally regret that so
much of the earlier history of Israel which is presented in the
Bible is “ideal” history, written from the standpoint of a much
later age. Yet what has been lost is relatively unimportant, be-
eause fortunately the story of the bitter struggle and ultimate
triumph of the prophets is, in its main outlines, elear.
The mists of the dawn of Hebrew history almost entirely
shut out Moses from our sight. These mists are still thiek three
hundred years later, when Elijah appears upon the scene. At
that time, early in the ninth eentury b.c., the struggle between
Canaanite superstition and Israelite religion was at its fiercest.
The Baal worship of the Canaanites was supported by the
prestige of Phoenician power; but Elijah won the vietory.
He established the principles that Jehovah alone was God
in Israel, that Jehovah was righteous and demanded righteous¬
ness from His people. The narratives of Elijah and Elisha
84
The Outline of Literature
have been incorporated in the Book of Kings from a very
early source. They are of Northern Israelitish origin, and
exhibit the ease, grace, and vividness which belong to the
best style of Hebrew historical literature.” But they are
dramatic history of the type which preserves the spirit of a
great adventure; and not till we come to Amos do we get teach¬
ing authenticated by the very words of the prophet himself.
In the year 760 b.c. when Amos flourished, the centre of
Hebrew national life was not in the petty state of Judah but in
the powerful Northern Kingdom. To Amos, as to many
another, it was plain that this kingdom, together with all the
surrounding nations, was in danger of being overwhelmed by
Assyria. As he mused over the situation he saw that, if J ehovah
was Creator, then every movement of history was Jehovah’s
work. The Assyrian would be the instrument of divine punish¬
ment on all who broke the laws of universal morality. And
especially, since Israel had known Jehovah, she must seek Him
if she was to live. Yet her service must not be through ritual
and sacrifice. ‘T hate, I despise your feast days: I take no
pleasure in your solemn assemblies.” “Let justice flow like
waters and righteousness as an unfailing stream.” The
prophet’s message is as fresh, as much needed, now as when it
was written. A religion of priests and prosperous people who
condone injustice, sensuality, and harshness to the poor is worth¬
less. They who find comfort in it “shall go into captivity with
the first that go captive.” Jehovah will judge according to
righteousness, and especially strict will be His judgment of His
own people.
The virgin of Israel is fallen, she cannot rise again.
She is cast down upon her land, there is none to raise her up.
Before the downfall thus predicted had come to pass, Hosea ap¬
peared. He was the last prophet of the Northern Kingdom,
tragically isolated in a corrupt society whose ruin he foresaw.
Photo: Anderson.
From Michael Angelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.
JEREMIAH: PERHAPS THE FINEST EXAMPLE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
OF A CHARACTER DISCIPLINED AND STRENGTHENED BY SUFFERING
Photo; Anderson.
From Michael Angelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.
EZEKIEL: THE MYSTIC AND PRIEST WHO, MORE THAN ANY OTHER
MAN MADE POST-EXILIC JUDAISM
The Story of the Bible
85
His temperament was that of a poet. He was sensitive, with a
passionate religious earnestness. He insists that Jehovah loves
His people with the undying love that a husband can retain for
a faithless wife. God must punish, but punishment will not be
the end. Love, though outraged, is always eager to forgive.
Indifferent to the prophet’s message, the nobles of Samaria went
to their doom. In 722 b.c. the Northern Kingdom perished.
Thenceforth in the small kingdom of Judah, little more than the
fortress city of Jerusalem with its dependent countryside, the
spirit of Hebrew monotheism was preserved.
First Micah, “the prophet of the poor,” came forward to de¬
nounce the injustice of men in power, sternly to protest against
abuses condoned by a corrupt priesthood and false prophets.
Because of such evils “Zion shall be ploughed as a field and the
temple-mountain shall be as the high places of the forest.” And
then Isaiah appears on the scene. The “call,” which he describes
with such restrained power in chapter 6 of the Book of Isaiah,
probably took place in the year 740 b.c., while Hosea and Micah
were still active. Afterwards for forty years he sought to guide
his countrymen. He was alike a prophet and a statesman, ideal¬
ist, reformer, and shrewd judge of political issues. The range
and quality of his influence may be measured by the extent of the
literature gathered under his name. Of the Book of Isaiah the
last 27 chapters are a compilation of which the earliest portions
are a century and a half later than the time of the Prophet.
Even in the first 39 chapters there is much material not due to
him. But Isaiah began a great movement which profoundly
affected the national life of Judah. We may compare with it
the Evangelical movement of Wesley and his friends in Eng¬
land in the eighteenth century. Just as their preaching gave to
the English people spiritual tenacity which carried the country
safely through the Napoleonic wars, so the religious confidence
which Isaiah created lasted until the Jews returned from the
exile. Upon the basis of Isaiah’s evangelicalism developments
86
The Outline of Literature
of institutional religion were reared. But just as there would
have been no Oxford Movement had the Evangelical Revival
never taken place, so the Deuteronomic reform and the later
Levitical Code were possible because Isaiah had taught men to
hear the Divine voice asking, “Whom shall we send?” and to
give the answer “Here am I, send me.”
After Isaiah had passed away there came a heathen reaction
under Manasseh, who ruled as a vassal of Assyria for half a
century until the year 641 b.c. Fifteen years after his death
Jeremiah received his call. His priestly ancestry, no doubt,
made him more sympathetic than the earlier prophets to popular
sacrificial worship. Perhaps, too, he saw that it was neces¬
sary to accept and reform such worship if the prophetic tradi¬
tion was to survive. At any rate he associated himself with the
Deuteronomic reform, wherein priest and prophet made an
alliance discreditable to neither. Yet plainly with that reform
he was not wholly content. Quite explicitly he rejects the idea
that ritual is of value in itself. He was a mystic, who all around
him saw signs of God’s presence and power. In his writings for
the first time in the Old Testament “we find frequent, intimate
prayer.” He taught that such communion with God removed
religion from the domain of national pride. Inevitably the
fierce patriots of his troubled age denounced him as a traitor.
In his writings J eremiah offers us perhaps the finest example in
the Old Testament of a character disciplined and strengthened
by suffering. He and his people needed all the fortitude, all
the consolations of religion, which such an understanding as he
had won could give them. Jerusalem fell in 586 b.c. and
J eremiah was made prisoner. When last we hear of him, he was
being taken against his will by J ewish fugitives to Egypt.
The Planning and Preaching of Ezekiel
Some eleven years before the fall of Jerusalem Ezekiel had
been carried away to Babylon ; and there for a quarter of a cen-
The Story of the Bible
87
tury he dreamed and planned and preached. The Deuteronomic
reform had failed: Ezekiel laid the foundations of a more string¬
ent ecclesiastical system. Jerusalem was in ruins: Ezekiel, con¬
fident that the exiles would return, planned the theocratic state
which arose to justify his vision. He, more than any other
single man, made the Law, the Levitical Code which gave and
still gives such marvellous coherence to the Jewish people. The
enduring quality of his work testifies to his greatness. He had
great literary gifts: his description of the magnificence of Tyre
is a splendid piece of writing. His rich imaginative power is
shown repeatedly, especially in the vision of the glory of God
with which the Book of Ezekiel opens and in the picture of the
resurrection in “the valley of dry bones.” He quite rightly em¬
phasises the importance of personal religion and the value of
what a modern clergyman would term pastoral care. But, while
Jeremiah was a mystic seeking personal communion with God,
Ezekiel teaches the supremacy of Divine law. While Amos and
Hosea were puritans, Ezekiel is a ritualist. And his ritual was
the old Canaanite custom of animal sacrifices, strange and ab¬
horrent to us now. It is true that he spiritualises the meaning of
such rites, by developing the theology of propitiation which was
afterwards to have its place in Christian doctrine. But, great
as was his conception of the ordered Church transforming the
world, yet the voices of those who cry in the wilderness, and
recklessly find the peace of God amid strife and ruin, have done
more for humanity. Ezekiel must have had rare prophetic gifts
or he would not have been so distinguished a priest. Perhaps he
was the greatest priest in history.
■ Let us pass from him to another exile by the waters of
Babylon who lived a generation later, the unknown writer whom
scholars call the Second Isaiah. In the middle of the Book of
Isaiah, at the fortieth chapter, we hear his voice for the first time,
“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.” There¬
after there comes, with lyrical splendour unmatched in religious
88
The Outline of Literature
literature, a message of consolation for Israel. The beauty of
the language tends to hide from us the almost painful intensity
of the writer’s thought. But in no Old Testament writer do
we find a more august picture of the majesty of God. To the
Second Isaiah God is both Creator and Ruler of the world. Na¬
tions and their kings are the instruments of His purpose. Yet
He is also patient and loving, not only to Israel but to all the
nations upon earth. And Israel shall be His servant, suffering
that the world may be redeemed. Nowhere else in Hebrew litera¬
ture is there any parallel to this profound understanding. The
Second Isaiah discovered the secret of the redemptive power of
innocent suffering: more than five centuries before Calvary he
revealed the significance of the Cross. “Surely he hath borne
our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for
our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chas¬
tisement of our peace was upon him ; and with his stripes we are
healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned
every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all.” Here are combined unrivalled religious in¬
sight and matchless beauty of language; and of the writer we
know nothing, save that he lived when Cyrus the Persian de¬
stroyed the Babylonian Empire.
In the Old Testament there are altogether twelve Minor
Prophets. The work of the three earliest we have described. It
is sufficient to say that in the rest we find a considerable amount
of material later than the death of Alexander the Great (323
B.c.) . But the Book of Jonah deserves special mention. It is not
history but prophetic allegory. The writer, whom very un¬
certainly we may date about the year 300 b.c., took an old
prophetic legend, and made it the vehicle of some of the finest
ethical teaching in the Old Testament. The Second Isaiah had
proclaimed that Israel was disciplined by suffering that she
might spread to all humanity her knowledge of God. But later
From the picture in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Reproduced by permission of the Liverpool Corporation.
“ruth and NAOMI.” BY P. H. CALDERON
The story of Ruth is the most beautiful idyll in the Old Testament.
“TOBIT with the archangel,” by BOTTICELLI
One of many famous pictures which show the popularity of stories from the Apocrypha at the time of the Renaissance.
The Story of the Bible
89
Judaism too often showed itself narrow and fiercely patriotic.
Against national intolerance the Book of Jonah is a splendid
and powerful protest. The prophet, who typifies Israel, is sent
by God to preach repentance even to Nineveh, the great capital
of his country’s enemies. He tries to escape this unpleasant duty,
but in vain. When finally he obeys the Divine command, Nine¬
veh repents and God forgives. Jonah, sullen and angry, up¬
braids God for His mercy. And God answers, “Should I not
spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six-score
thousand little children and also much cattle?” Both those who
profess literal belief in the miracle of Jonah’s whale and those
who deride their credulity usually ignore the lesson of this beauti¬
ful allegory. Modern nations at war, like fanatical Jews of old,
resent such teaching. But the Book of Jonah has well been
called the Holy of Holies of the Old Testament.
§ 5
THE WRITINGS
The National Literature of the Jews
The third division of the Hebrew Old Testament consists, as
we have seen, of eleven or, according to our reckoning, thirteen
books. Though they may contain some early material they were
for the most part written late in Jewish history, probably within
the two centuries which ended with the year 140 b.c. At that
date the Jews, under the Maccabean princes, had just regained
their independence. We can imagine the thrill of exultation
which then went through the people. They were once again a
free nation. They awoke to the fact that, outside the Law and
the Prophets, they had a national literature, a valuable record of
national tenacity during the era of subjection. There was an
irresistible impulse to gather together the finest works in this
literature, to make a collection of poetry, drama, philosophy, and
late history which should supplement the earlier Scriptures. So
90
The Outline of Literature
“The Writings” were gradually collected and gradually re¬
garded as inspired. Such scanty evidence as we possess points
to the fact that about a century before the birth of Christ this
process was virtually completed. But even in Christ s day J ew-
ish teachers did not regard “The W^ritings” as on a level with
the Law and the Prophets. In particular the sacred character
of four books, the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Esther, and
Chronicles, was long disputed. But at a conference at J amnia,
about A.D. 100, Jewish rabbis appear to have reached agreement.
Thenceforth, as scholars say, the canon of the Hebrew Old
Testament was closed. The leaders of the Jewish Church rati¬
fied a popular verdict ; but the strange arguments by which some
justified their action may be taken to show the hesitation which
they felt. From three of the four disputed hooks there is no
quotation in the l^ew Testament. To Chronicles alone is there
a reference; and this reference shows that it was regarded, when
Jesus taught, as the last of the books deemed inspired.
By far the greatest of all the works in “The Writings” is
the Book of Psalms. Sometimes, indeed, it gives its name to the
whole collection. It is a h5m[m-book, the finest hymn-book ever
made. Some of the hymns in it are ancient; a few may even go
back to the time of David. But most were written after the
Exile and some probably belong to Maccabean times. The hymn-
book was compiled for use at the Temple in Jerusalem. Natur¬
ally, however, it passed into use at the synagogue services and
thus had a profound influence on the faith of the Jewish people
in the tune of Christ. Anyone who examines the teaching of
Jesus, as it is recorded in St. Mark, the earliest of the Gospels,
will notice how frequently He quotes the Psalms. Christians in
all ages have shared His love of these glorious hymns. Some few
are vindictive and so alien from His temper. A few others we
may deem prosaic. But the large majority are extraordinarily
beautiful, alike in thought and expression. They are pure poetry,
whereas too many modern hymns merely deserve to be described
The Story of the Bible
91
as religious verse. Especially splendid are the Pilgrim Songs
(Psalms 120-134) which were sung by Jews coming to the Great
Feasts as they ascended Mount Zion. We do not get in the
Psalms, and we should hardly expect to find, any advance on the
religious teaching of the great prophets. There is, for example,
in the Psalter no doctrine of Eternal Life. The idea that pro¬
sperity is the reward of righteousness is common. The theology
of this great hymn-book is, in fact, conventional. But faith and
hope abound. Beligious joy and spiritual confidence, trust in
God and thankfulness for His mercies, find repeated expression
in language which is a pure delight. No religious poetry that has
yet been written can be ranked above these Jewish hymns.
Among “The Writings” there are two other poetical works.
Lamentations consists of five dirges, highly artificial in structure.
Possibly the second and fourth were written by some man who
had actually seen the horrors of the capture of Jerusalem in 586
B.C., while the remainder are of later date. Even in the English
version we seem to find studied elaboration rather than passion
evoked by overwhelming tragedy ; and few will contradict the ver¬
dict that the book is not supremely great either in its religious
insight or as a work of art. The Song of Songs^ as we have
already seen, was classed as Scripture only after much hesita¬
tion. Its right to a place in the Bible was defended on the ground
that Solomon was its author, and that, symbolically, it repre¬
sented Jehovah’s love for his people. Neither contention can be
justified. Its language shows that, in its present form, it can¬
not be earlier than the third century b.c. It does not mention
Jehovah; it is in no sense a religious work. Some believe it to
be a disordered dramatic idyll ; but more probably, it is a collec¬
tion of unconnected love-lyrics such as were sung at Jewish wed¬
ding-feasts. Their beauty, their sensuous passion, is undeniable.
We do not wonder that Goethe praised them highly. They are
voluptuous without being coarse. There is in them, moreover, a
sensitive delight in nature which is rare in Hebrew literature. It
92
The Outline of Literature
is good that the Song of Songs should be in the Bible if only to
remind us that, to the men who made the Old Testament as to our¬
selves, human love and springtime were two of God’s rich gifts.
From poetry we pass naturally to idyllic narrative and
drama. Of each of these forms of art we have one example in
“The Writings.” The Book of Ruth is exquisite in its simplicity
and grace : Goethe described it as the loveliest little idyll that tra¬
dition has handed down to us. The story moves forward easily
and naturally; it is filled with the spirit of kindliness. When it
was written we cannot tell : some good scholars believe it to be a
very early example of Hebrew literary art. Early or late, it de¬
serves to be immortal. Contrast with the fierce nationalism of
Esther the words of Ruth the Moabitess to the Israelite widow:
“Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will
lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”
With such affection the daughter of Moab came to Bethlehem.
Half the world now turns with like love to that Judaean village.
A Great Drama
The Book of J oh is u great drama, of which the theme is the
problem of human suffering. It presents many conundrums to
commentators, among whom there is much disagreement. But
apparently an early popular story was used as a basis of the
drama; and, after the first draft was completed, large additions
and alterations were made by other writers. Consequently it is
unequal, alike in descriptive power and in cogency of thought.
The book mirrors the perplexity of Jewish thinkers during the
period of Greek domination. It belongs to what is called the
Wisdom-Literature of the Jews. Roughly speaking, this litera¬
ture is Jewish speculative philosophy: in it an attempt is made to
understand God’s nature by an intellectual inquiry into the pro¬
blems of human life. In Job no satisfactory reason is given for
the suffering of the righteous. When the Lord answers out of
the whirlwind He merely bids Job consider the inexplicable
CHRIST, AS IMAGINED BY LEONARDO DA VINCI
Photo: W. A. Mansell (s’ Co.
"CHRIST WASHING PETER's FEET,” BY FORD MADOX BROWN
The Fourth Gospel records, not the Last Supper, but the Washing of the Feet by which Christ consecrated human service.
The Story of the Bible
93
majesty of His creative power, manifest everywhere. St. Paul
was doubtless recalling this reverent agnosticism when he wrote,
“How unsearchable are God’s judgments, and His ways past
finding out.”
Though the agnosticism of the Book of Job is profoundly
reverent, there are in the Old Testament two other wisdom-books
where faith has plainly degenerated. In Proverbs a shrewd
worldly morality is mixed with finer material; in the greater
part of Ecclesiastes sceptical pessimism is dominant. Neither
book in its present form can be much earlier than the year 250
B.c. The Book of Proverbs undoubtedly is highly composite in
character. It contains three main divisions, of which the finest
and latest is to he found in the first nine chapters of the book.
The climax of this “Praise of Wisdom” magnificently describes
Wisdom as with God from the beginning. “When He prepared
the heavens I was there. When He appointed the fomidations of
the earth I was by Him.”
We feel no surprise that Ecclesiastes was only admitted to
the Old Testament after prolonged hesitation. Its triumph hears
witness to the wide liberality of later Jewish thought. We can
best understand its apparent inconsistencies if we think of it as a
record of the free discussion of academic theologians. It is often
terribly gloomy, but the last chapter is superb in its English
dress. “Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be
broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel
broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as
it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” — the
pure music of such sentences is perfect.
There remain for our consideration four works. Chronicles,
Ezra and Nehemiah, Daniel, and Esther. Chronicles, Ezra and
Nehemiah really form a single continuous narrative, and it is
generally assumed that all were produced by the same compiler.
He probably lived during the third century b.c. A comparison
with the Books of Kings, which he used as one of the main sources
94
The Outline of Literature
of his work, shows that as a historian he is untrustworthy. For
this reason, probably, the Book of Chronicles with difficulty se¬
cured a place among “The Writings.” Ezra and Nehemiah were
accepted more readily as there was no book in the historical sec¬
tion of “The Prophets” which dealt with the same period of
history. Yet it is certain that, as historical records of the return
from the Exile, these works, though interesting, are faulty.
Speaking briefly. Chronicles is Kings rewritten by a strict Jew¬
ish Churchman: it is history falsified that it may be made edify¬
ing. In the supposed interests of piety truth has been sacrificed.
Other ages can offer worse examples of ecclesiastical historians
who were convinced that truth could be usefully perverted for
the greater glory of God.
The Book of Daniel was written within the period 165-163
B.c. to encourage the Jews during the persecution of Antiochus
Epiphanes. The success of the Maccabean revolt, to which it
doubtless gave powerful aid, won for it widespread popularity.
Though it is probably the latest book in the Old Testament it was
speedily included among “The Writings”; and in the time of
Christ it was as well known as is Pilgrim's Progress to ourselves.
It is the only example in the Old Testament of what is called
Apocalyptic literature. In the New Testament the Book of
Revelation is a work of the same type; and a number of other
similar works are known to scholars. In all of them we find
veiled predictions, usually relating to the outcome of events in the
writer’s own time, combined with fantastic and sometimes mag¬
nificent imagery. Often these works, by a literary fiction which
deceived nobody, were assigned to some worthy of the past, a
Daniel, a Moses, an Enoch. The writers of them sought to give
a religious interpretation of history and to express their faith in
the ultimate triumph of righteousness. Only by a violent effort
of the imagination can we understand them aright, for they be¬
long to a form of art and to modes of thought which have passed
away. The Book of Daniel is a great work, for its stories still
The Story of the Bible
95
inspire and its grandeur still attracts men, though too often they
profoundly misconceive its character.
The Book of Esther is an elaborate and skilfully written
story which appealed to Jewish national pride. It is useful to
have it in the Old Testament if only to indicate the sort of narra¬
tive which was popular in the time of Christ. It is alien from
His spirit ; and all Christians will sympathise with the reluctance
of the Rabbis to class it among their sacred books.
§ 6
THE APOCRYPHA
In some English Bibles, placed between the Old and New
Testaments, there are fourteen books or fragments of books,
which bear the title “Apocrypha.” Roughly speaking, these
books were accepted by Jews of Alexandria as part of the Bible,
but rejected by Jews of Palestine. All but three of them are
regarded as “inspired” by the Roman Church. The Reformed
Churches give them a less honourable place. In the Church of
England passages from the Apocrypha are read “for example of
life and instruction of manners”; they are not to be applied “to
establish any doctrine.”
Some of these books and fragments are not worthy of a place
in the Bible. The stories of Susanna and of Bel and the Dragon
are poor stuff. Judith is a horrible tale in which a woman treach¬
erously uses her beauty to murder the general of an invading
army. The Second Book of Maccabees is history decked with
fantastic legends. The First Book of Esdras is of even less his¬
torical value than Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. The best-
known passage in it is the story of the three guardsmen who
disputed as to what was the strongest thing in the world. “The
first wrote. Wine is the strongest. The second wrote. The King
is the strongest. The third wrote. Women are the strongest; but,
above all things, Truth beareth away the victory.” At the end
t
96
The Outline of Literature
“all the people shouted and said, Great is Truth, and mighty
above all things.” The verdict has passed into popular speech in
its Latin dress, Magna est veritas et prcevalet. The Book of
Tobit is a romance which in the later Middle Ages was very
popular; but, though it contains some fine moral lessons, it has
more than a faint flavour of the Arabian Nights.
Yet in the Apocrypha there are also works of real value.
The First Book of Maccabees is first-rate history of the success¬
ful revolt of the Jews after their persecution by Antiochus
Epiphanes. It was written about 100 b.c.^ when little more than
half a century had passed since the events which it records. As
we study this history we realise the anguish and determination
which caused the Book of Daniel to be written; and we under¬
stand why that apocalypse continued to be widely and deservedly
popular in the time of Christ.
The most important and most attractive work in the Apoc¬
rypha is that called Ecclesiasticus. Its proper title is The Wis¬
dom of J esus-ben-Sirach, It consists of shrewd reflections upon
life, and gives a sort of religious philosophy of conduct of singu¬
lar beauty and penetration. ' In some former Christian ages it
was widely read and highly esteemed: its title, which is at least
as early as the third century, shows that it was regarded as in an
especial degree the Church Book. Its author Jesus (or Joshua) ,
the son or grandson of Sirach, was a Jew of Palestine who wrote
about the year 180 b.c., some fifteen years before the Book of
Daniel was written. The grandson of this Jesus revised the work
and translated it into Greek when he was living in Egypt.
The Wisdom-Literature of the Jews
The more Ecclesiasticus is studied, the more it is loved. It
ranks with the Book of Job as one of the two finest examples of
the Wisdom-literature of the Jews. To the author “the fountain
of wisdom is the word of God most high.” “There is One wise
and greatly to be feared, the Lord sitting upon His throne.”
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The Story of the Bible
97
“All wisdom cometh from the Lord and is with Him for ever.”
In this spirit of austere piety Jesus-ben-Sirach surveys the life
of man. He has studied books and human nature with equal
zest and insight. He is free from illusions, but his freedom has
not hardened into cynicism. His reflections are not always origi¬
nal: could any man produce an original summary of proverbial
philosophy? Yet as a phrase-maker he is great. “A fool travail-
eth with a word, as a woman in labour with a child,” is most
happily turned; and more than phrase-making has gone to the
sentence, “There is a sinner that hath good success in evil things;
and there is a gain that turneth to loss.”
One of the most attractive things about Ben-Sirach is his
strong, yet truly religious, common-sense. Of worship without
righteousness he is as scornful as the great prophets of His race.
“The sacrifice of a just man is acceptable,” he says significantly.
He is contemptuous of the superstitions which seem to be always
with us. “Divinations and soothsay ings and dreams are vain:
and the heart fancieth as a woman’s heart in travail.” With re¬
gard to the respective values of prayer and a physician’s skill in
sickness, he keeps the balance true. “My son, in thy sickness be
not negligent; but pray unto the Lord, and He will make thee
whole. Leave off from sin, and cleanse thy heart from all wicked¬
ness. Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created
him : let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him. There
is a time when in their hands there is good success.” Such sane
teaching has lost none of its value by the lapse of time.
The Dignified Beauty of Ecclesiasticus
The best known of all the passages in Ecclesiasticus is, of
course, that which begins, “Let us now praise famous men.” Its
use in England, whenever school or college benefactors are com¬
memorated, has become general ; and, however often we may hear
the passage read, the appeal of its dignified beauty does not fail.
“Their bodies are buried in peace, but their name liveth for ever-
voL r
98
The Outline of Literature
more,” is magnificent in its simplicity; and for sublime pathos i
there are few sentences in the English language which can equal
the apparently unstudied words, “and some there be, which have
no memorial; who are perished as though they had never been.”
There is a second wisdom-book in the Apocrypha which
bears the title The Wisdom of Solomon. Its author was a Pales¬
tinian Jew who was quite possibly a contemporary of St. Paul.
He was, even more than the Apostle, under the influence of
Greek religious ideas of his age. Christians at a first reading
are tempted to class his work above Ecclesiasticus. They are in¬
evitably attracted by its doctrine of the all-pervading presence
and power of the Spirit of God. “Thy counsel who hath known
except Thou give wisdom, and send Thy Holy Spirit from
above,” is a sentence which might have come from the New Testa¬
ment. Christians feel also that the book contains their own doc¬
trine of Eternal Life. “For God created nikn to be immortal and
made him to be the image of His own eternity” — such is a belief
which will last as long as Christianity endures. Yet the book is
not quite first-rate. Perhaps the writer was ambitious to make it
supremely beautiful and for that reason failed to produce such
unstudied perfection as we find, for instance, in St. Paul’s great
Eulogy of Love. But at times we forget to be critical. “The
souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no
torment touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to
die : and their departure is taken for misery, and their going from
us to be utter destruction: but they are in peace.” The man who
could write these words of faith and hope had a true message for
humanity.
There is only, one other work in the Apocrypha which in our
brief survey merits description. It is the Second Book of Esdras,
which was written by a Jew after the fall of Jerusalem in a.d. 70.
Some Christian writer revised the work and added a preface; and
the book thus edited was probably published soon after the year
A.D. 120. Many Jews thought that the destruction of Jerusalem
Photo: Braun, Clement b‘ Co.
“jESUS MOURNS OVER THE CITY,” BY PAUL H. FLANDRIN
. . thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children
together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”
MASACCIO S FRESCO OF ST PETER VISITED IN PRISON
BY ST. PAUL
The Story of the Bible
99
and of the Temple would begin the End of the Age: the calamity
would prepare the way for a Messianic Kingdom of God. The
influence of such ideas can be seen in the Gospels and even more
explicitly in the Book of Revelation; and it is because the Second
Book of Esdras has so many parallels to 'New Testament writings
that scholars have studied it minutely. The hook, in fact, helps
us to understand what was the religious background of the early
Christian missionaries. When the author wrote, the breach be¬
tween Judaism and Christianity had not become complete. In
the book there is the “larger, broader, more genial spirit of
Judaism,” which passed away with the triumph of Jewish legal¬
ism a generation later. Whenever Christianity has been true to
the temper of its Founder, it has preserved this spirit. Because
of its presence, early leaders like St. Paul and St. John freed their
faith from Jewish fetters; and, by using the language and ideas
of the Greek world, commended the Gospel to the Gentiles.
The Second Book of Esdras is but one among many works
which have precariously survived to show the religious influences
which fashioned the growth of Christianity. This literature links
the Old Testament to the New. Study of it is a fascinating
branch of research; but it merely confirms the fact that Christi¬
anity would never have come into existence had not men felt that
Jesus, by His life and teaching, in a manner unparalleled, re¬
vealed God to the world.
§ 7
THE NEW TESTAMENT
The books of the New Testament were written in Greek and
all the writers, except possibly St. Luke, were Jews. But their
Greek was not the language of Homer, or even of Thucydides
or Plato ; it was Hellenistic Greek, the popular language in
which, in the first century of our era, men spoke to their friends
and wrote to their wives. The literary Greek of that period was
artificial, “fine writing,” which tried to copy classical models of
100
The Outline of Literature
style. New Testament Greek seemed a thing apart, until quite
recently family and business letters of the same age were dis¬
covered in the sand of Egypt. Then its true nature was
revealed.
The New Testament writers wisely used this popular
language, for they sought to spread Christianity not merely
among a cultured minority, but as widely as possible. For the
most part their converts came from what we should now call the
lower-middle classes. To this grade of society most of Christ’s
intimate disciples belonged. Some, like the sons of Zehedee, were
probably well-to-do ; hut all of them were above the status of the
slave. The early missionaries welcomed men and women of all
classes. Though they used popular Greek, we must not think of
them as ill-educated. St. Paul, who received a thorough theo¬
logical training, seems to have been the son of a man of good
position in his native city. Both St. Luke and St. John the
Evangelist were men of ability and culture; and all the other
New Testament writers were able to express themselves in Greek,
though it was probably in no case their native tongue.
«
The Writers of the New Testament
Though the New Testament writers used a non-literary
language they often reached, as our Authorised Version shows, a
splendid dignity. Convinced that they had a great message, they
wrote naturally and directly. St. Mark’s Greek is rough; but
with great brevity he gives us a singularly vigorous and effective
memoir. St. Paul dictated his letters to a secretary. We have
in them unfinished sentences, involved arguments, rapid changes
of thought. As we read them, Paul the preacher rises before us.
As we study them, we are amazed by the fertility of his mind, its
subtlety and flexibility, its creative power; and at times he reaches
levels of eloquence unsurpassed in literature. A modern scholar
describes St. J ohn’s writing as “correct enough in grammar, but
simple to baldness and with no sense of idiom.” Yet, though he
The Story of the Bible
101
struggles in this way with a language not his own, he has pro¬
duced in the Fourth Gospel and in his First Epistle two master¬
pieces of religious literature. Words recur; simple detached
sentences follow one another: there is no ornament; all seems
“thin and abstract.” We should expect complete failure; we get
the purest spiritual beauty. The mys ic and philosopher speaks,
as it were, a child’s language; yet none other has enriched so
greatly man’s spiritual understanding. St. Luke is the most bril¬
liant writer in the New Testament. His ease and grace of style,
his wide sympathies, his sensitiveness, make him peculiarly at¬
tractive to modern readers. His descriptive power, as we see in
his account of St. Paul’s shipwreck, is remarkable; and anyone
who doubts his literary skill should try to rewrite the Parable of
the Prodigal Son. Yet, of course, that parable came from Jesus,
perhaps with little change ; and the literary quality of His teach¬
ing we cannot ignore.
Jesus of Nazareth
Even in a literary discussion of the New Testament it is
quite impossible to ignore Jesus of Nazareth. His personality
dominates the whole collection of books and gives it its inherent
unity. His teaching as to God and Man, His death, the perfec¬
tion of His character. His significance for humanity — with such
matters the New Testament writers are almost exclusively con¬
cerned. When we reflect that, for the most part, these writers
had not known Jesus personally, that their witness is at second¬
hand, we realise how firm and deep must have been the impress
which Christ made on those who were with him during His brief
mission. There is, in the main outlines of the picture which we
have of Him, no blurring. We know His thought. His temper,
His character — in a word. His quality — as we know that of few
men in history.
Probably the records of His teaching given in the Gospels
are more exact than we should expect. It is true that at least
102
The Outline of Literature
thirty years passed after His death before any of the Gospels
were written. But the Jews cultivated a verbal memory, whereas
we trust to written records; so it may well be that even after
half a century accurate fragments of his teaching were preserved.
Probably Jesus was born in 6 b.c. and crucified in a.d. 29. He
normally used the Aramaic dialect of Palestine; but He knew
Hebrew, and probably could speak Greek. A century before
His birth the population of Galilee was largely non- Jewish: it
was “Galilee of the Gentiles”; and, in Christ’s lifetime, Caper¬
naum and the adjacent towns were as much Grasco- Syrian as
Jewish. Near Nazareth, a town of possibly some 10,000 people,
ran great high-roads connecting some of the chief cities of the
Levant. Thus, though Jesus came from a carpenter’s cottage,
His youth was not entirely remote from the great world. Yet,
of course, above all He was Himself. As Professor Peake says,
“no figure in history is more marked by perfect poise and mental
balance, none more utterly sincere, more searching in His moral
judgments, more relentless in His exposure of unreality.” The
quality of His teaching is shown most vividly in the great para¬
bles and in that collection of His sayings which we call the
Sermon on the Mount. The sayings bear the unmistakable stamp
of absolute religious genius. In them the finest moral idealism
is enforced by epigrams and paradox. The commands are direct,
unhesitating, and sincere. A shrewd simplicity goes hand in
hand with a noble century. To the speaker Heaven is as real
as earth. He lives with God more than with men. He has a sure
insight into the human heart and an equally sure understanding
of the nature and purpose of God. He never hesitates, is never
at a loss. His mind is amazingly fertile, quick to unify apparent
contradictions. He has, if we may use the metaphor, the creative
genius of a great moral and religious artist. In Him is the
austere dignity which great wisdom gives. His calm authority
inspires awe and respect. For the rest we will only say that He
has been revered and loved as no other man in human history. So
Photos: Elliott 6“ Fry, Ltd.
BISHOP WESTCOTT
PROFESSOR HORT
The two great English scholars of the last generation to whom the standard Greek Text of the New Testament is due.
Photo: J. Russell & Sons.
R. H. CHAPvLES, ARCHDEACON OF WESTMINSTER
The greatest living authority on Jewish and Christian
Apocalyptic literature.
Photo: Russell, London.
W. R. INGE, DEAN OF ST. PAUL’s
Scholar, Philosopher, and Theologian.
1
The Story of the Bible
103
it has come to pass that the four Gospels have been printed more
frequently and read more often, more intently, and more affec¬
tionately, than any books ever written.
The Four Gospels
The earliest of them is the Gospel according to St, Mark,
which was apparently written about the time of the fall of
Jerusalem, 70 a.d., though it may be some ten years older. It
probably was founded on “the rough popular preaching” of St.
Peter and the earliest missionaries. Its author was John Mark,
the nephew of Barnabas and at intervals the companion of St.
Paul. When the men who had known Jesus were passing away,
St. Mark wrote down the honest, effective, oft-told story which
had been their “good-news,” their Gospel. He included also an
account of the last days of John the Baptist, which he probably
got from some follower of that prophet; and inserted the Little
Apocalypse (chapter 13) in which some Christian Jew had
mingled Christ’s prediction of the doom of Jerusalem with his
own vision of the End of the Age.
The Gospel according to St. Luke and the Acts of the
Apostles are due to a single author, who in the latter half of the
Acts has incorporated sections of a diary kept by one who
travelled with St. Paul when he was taken as a prisoner to Rome.
That the diarist was St. Luke and that he wrote both the Gospel
which bears his name and the Acts is very probable. It may
be that the Acts contains no account of St. Paul’s martyrdom be¬
cause it was written before that event; in that case the Gospel
must be dated about a.d. 60. On the other hand many scholars
believe that it was written a generation later; and some assume
that an unknown editor used St. Luke’s diary. It has now been
established, by ingenious and quite conclusive arguments, that
both St. Luke and the author of ‘Hhe Gospel according to St.
Matthew/" used Mark together with another early document, now
lost. This document scholars call Q. It was a supremely im-
104
The Outline of Literature
portant record of the teaching of Christ, which the Apostle
Matthew had written. A large piece of it was incorporated
wholesale in our first Gospel as the Sermon on the Mount. Be¬
cause of this fact, the first Gospel bears the name of St. Mat¬
thew; but it was really written by an unknown Jewish Christian
of Palestine about the year a.d. 80. He used, besides Mark and
Q, a collection of proof-texts to show that Christ was the ful¬
filment of Jewish prophecy. This way of using the Old Testa¬
ment was in accord with allegorical methods of interpretation
common among Jewish Rabbis of the time: we do not deem it
satisfactory. In “Matthew” we also find that Church practices,
which had grown up during the half-century since Christ’s death,
were believed to have His authority. The book is well suited for
reading at public worship ; and was placed first among the Gos¬
pels because it was for long most highly esteemed. The modern
world values Mark more highly because it is more primitive. Yet
at one time Mark was in danger of being lost, like Q. The end
of it has perished. As Professor Burkitt says, all our manu¬
scripts are derived from a single tattered copy. St. Luke, far
more than the author of the first Gospel, was a historian in the
modern sense. Besides Mark and Q, he managed to reach highly
valuable sources of information. From these came incidents
that women were especially likely to have remembered: from
them also came the great parables of the Good Samaritan and
the Prodigal Son, which he alone has preserved.
The Fourth Gospel still remains an enigma: its authorship
and its historical value are fiercely disputed. It is not a bio¬
graphy so much as a spiritual interpretation of the life of Christ.
It stands in somewhat the same relation to the other Gospels as
does Plato’s Apology to a life of Socrates. Without doubt,
the author also wrote the three Epistles of St. John; without
doubt he preserved accurate traditions of the career of Jesus
which are independent of, and sometimes correct, the other Gos¬
pels. But his theology is a development of that of St. Paul; he
The Story of the Bible
105
is “St. Paul’s best commentator.” Probably St. John, the be¬
loved disciple, the son of Zebedee, in the beginning made his own
intimate knowledge of Christ the basis of addresses and medita¬
tions. The memory of these was preserved by a group of fol¬
lowers, who were also influenced by St. Paul’s teaching and by
current Greek philosophy. And finally some man of genius
among the group produced within the period a.d. 100-115 the
Gospel which hears St. John’s name. Whatever its origin, it is,
as Clement of Alexandria called it towards the end of the second
century, the “spiritual” Gospel. The writer clearly stated his
purpose in composing it in the words with which the hook ended,
before the final chapter was added as an appendix. It was “writ¬
ten that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God ; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”
St. Paul
In the New Testament there are probably ten genuine
Epistles of St. Paul. The first to be written, the two letters to
the TliessaLonians, must he dated about a.d. 50: they are proba¬
bly the earliest works in the New Testament. At intervals of
a year or two between each, there followed the Epistles to the
Corinthians, Romans, and Galatians. The remaining letters to
the Colossians, Philemon, the Ephesians, and Philippians were
probably written about a.d. 60. It is, however, just possible that
Ephesians is not a genuine Epistle of St. Paul: its vocabulary
differs somewhat from that of the undoubted letters. St. Paul
was probably born about the same time as Christ, converted a few
years after the Crucifixion, and executed during Nero’s persecu¬
tion of the Christians in a.d. 64. His Epistles thus cover little
more than the last ten years of his life. They are true letters,
and not theological treatises in disguise. There is in them little
systematic unity, and they show a surprisingly rapid develop¬
ment of thought. The later Epistles contain many echoes of the
pagan mystery-religions. In the “mysteries,” Professor Gilbert
106
The Outline of Literature
Murray says, men sought “for some magic of redemption in
which purification and passionate penitence should count for
more than a mere upright life.” To this end men were initiated
into mystical brotherhoods, which had sacraments and fasts: they
believed that thereby they could obtain communion with some
deity and immortality through salvation. It was natural that
converts to Christianity from these forms of faith should retain
many of their old ideas. What surprises us is that St. Paul, with
his Jewish background, should have been so willing to use the
language of these alien cults. With their magics he had no
sympathy: he remained a Jew for whom faith issuing in right¬
eousness was all-important. But, as Dr. Inge says, though he
“was ready to fight to the death against the Judaising of Chris¬
tianity, he was willing to take the first step, and a long one,
towards the Paganising of it.”
The debt which Christianity owes to St. Paul is so vast
that we need not try to measure it. There is indeed a danger that
he, and not Jesus, may be thought of as the virtual founder of the
Christian faith. Against such exaggeration we ought to guard
ourselves. In a sense the Apostle created Christian theology;
hut, in so doing, he only gave form to Messianic claims which
Christ made for Himself. The body is St. Paul’s: his Master
gave the spirit and the life.
The Epistles to Timothy and Titus which bear the name of
St. Paul are almost certainly “much-edited fragments” of genu¬
ine letters of the Apostle. They lay emphasis on details of
Church organisation which, by natural development, became im¬
portant a generation after St. Paul’s career ended. Their
language is unlike his: and above all we miss the ringing note
of his evangelical faith. If we assume that they took their pres¬
ent shape about a.d. 100, we shall not go far wrong.
The Epistle to the Hebrews bears in its title St. Paul’s
name: but from quite early times men of insight saw that he
could not have been its author. It was written about the year
Photo: W. A, Mansell &* Co.
ERASMUS
The great Renaissance scholar who produced the first printed
Greek Testament
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
TINDALE TRANSLATING THE BIBLE
“He furnished to all later translators a wonderful pattern of
simple and dignified English."
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Reproduced by kind permission of the British and Foreign Bible
Society. From a specimen in their Library.
tindale’s new testament, the first printed
TRANSLATION IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
The specimen page reproduced shows the actual type area.
The Story of the Bible
107
A.D. 80, possibly for .Tews in Rome, where it was known before
the end of the first century. It is the most elaborate literary work
in the New Testament, a short treatise rather than a letter. Be¬
cause of its polished precision we still find it fairly easy to read,
though its Jewish background of High Priest and sacrifice and
its allegorical use of Scripture are foreign to our thought. There
are in it some finely eloquent passages.
The First Epistle of Peter and the Epistles of James and
Jude are all short works, and there is no agreement among
scholars as to their authorship and date. “James” is the most
Jewish book in the New Testament: its note of kindly authority
and its atmosphere of simple goodness make it singularly attrac¬
tive. If it was written by “the brother of the Lord,” it must be
one of the earliest Christian writings which have survived. The
First Epistle of Peter has originality and a certain distinction:
it is interesting in that it stands, as it were, midway between St-
Paul’s Hellenism and the Judaic Christianity of St. James.
“Jude” is mainly remarkable because the writer refers to late
Jewish legends preserved in works called The Book of Enoch
and The Assumption of Moses. The so-called Second Epistle
of Peter is the latest book in the Bible. It was written between
the years a.d. 130-150, and has little historical and no literary
value.
The Revelation of St. John the Divine is a book of remarka¬
ble grandeur and power. It is the work of a Jew who, though he
wrote in Greek, thought in Hebrew and constantly used Hebrew
idioms. Its style proves conclusively that its author was not the
St. John of the Fourth Gospel. The greater part of it is poetry
rather than prose: and the poetry has rare beauty and sublime
simplicity.
Dr. Charles gives, as an example of its character:
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth ;
For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away ;
108
The Outline of Literature
And there was no more sea.
And the holy city, New Jerusalem, I saw
Coming down out of heaven from God,
Made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
The seer, whose visions are so rich in imagery and spiritual
insight, was apparently a Christian from Galilee who migrated
to Ephesus and completed his book during the persecution of
Domitian about the year a.d. 95. Like the writer of the book of
Daniel, he used the later Jewish form of prophecy which we term
Apocalyptic. His object was to proclaim the coming of the
Kingdom of God upon earth, and to assure the persecuted Chris¬
tians of the final triumph of goodness. That triumph will be
realised when “the kingdoms of this world are become the king¬
dom of the Lord and of his Christ.” The faithful are to follow
wherever the Lamb that was slain may lead: for them, whether
they live or die, there can be no defeat. With such splendid
optimism the Bible ends.
§ 8
TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE
After the time of Ezra (450 b.c.) Hebrew gradually ceased
to be a living language. When Jesus taught, though Hebrew
was still used in worship, the Jews of Palestine spoke a dialect
called Aramaic. The great international language at that time
was Greek. In fact, after Alexander the Great (330 b.c.) con¬
quered the Persian Empire, Greek speedily became the common
speech of the Jews who spread over the Eastern Mediterranean
in pursuit of trade. In Alexandria there was, from its founda¬
tion, a large Jewish colony; and for their needs a translation of
the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek was begun about
the year 240 b.c. It was probably finished within the next two
centuries; and is known as the Septuagint. It contained a number
of works, now in our Apocrypha, which were not in the Hebrew
The Story of the Bible
109
Old Testament. This Greek version is especially important be¬
cause New Testament writers very frequently quote it when they
refer to passages in the earlier part of the Bible. The New
Testament itself was originally written in Greek; and until
about the year a.d. 200 the Christian Church normally used Greek
Scriptures. About that time these Greek Scriptures were trans¬
lated into Latin. Some two centuries later the great scholar
Jerome made a more accurate Latin translation of the whole
Bible. For this purpose he used, not the Septuagint, but the
Hebrew text of the Old Testament. He thus produced the
V ulgate, which to this day remains the standard Latin translation
of the complete Bible.
The first complete English version of the Old and New
Testaments resulted from Wycliffe’s attempt to evangelise
England. In the fourteenth century the Church in England was
wealthy and powerful; formal worship was magnificent; but, as
Chaucer’s writings plainly show, there was dire need of a re¬
ligious revival. Wycliffe saw the need; and, like the Reformers
a century and a half later, realised that the Bible must he the
basis of Christian teaching. So in order that his “poor preach¬
ers” might “faithfully scatter the seed of God’s Word,” he and
his followers produced about the year a.d. 1382 a translation
of the Scriptures, made from the Latin Vulgate. The officials
of the unreformed Church sought to prevent its circulation. But
it spread far and wide, though printing was unknown and only
manuscript copies could be obtained. Wycliffe had the insight
of a great spiritual leader. May we contend that he knew the
religious temperament of his countrymen and divined that they
would love the Bible if they could have it in their own tongue?
The First Printed English Bible
By the end of the fifteenth century printing had been dis¬
covered, and the great Dutch scholar Erasmus published the first
Greek Testament in a.d. 1516. Erasmus lived and lectured at
110
The Outline of Literature
Cambridge while beginning to prepare his work; and the fame
which the University thus gained as a home of the New Learning
helped to make it the intellectual centre of the English Reforma¬
tion. To Cambridge in a.d. 1515 there came an Oxford scholar
named William Tindale, who was henceforth to devote his life
to translating the Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew.
Tindale’s New Testament was published in a.d. 1526; and, when
he was martyred abroad ten years later, he had finished about
half of the Old Testament. Meanwhile, in the year a.d. 1535,
Miles Coverdale gave to the world the first printed English
Bible. Revised versions then began to appear in rapid succession
as scholars and divines worked with enthusiasm and skill in the
golden age of English literature. Finally our Authorised Ver¬
sion was published in 1611; and, notwithstanding the greater
accuracy of the Revised Version published in 1885, it remains
the Bible of the English-speaking peoples.
The supreme literary excellence of the Authorised Version
has made it the greatest of English classics. Owing to the superb
beauty of its language, the Bible has an importance in our litera¬
ture which is unparalleled elsewhere. It has been well said that
its English “lives on the ear like a music that can never be for¬
gotten.” To the fortunate chance that it was made in the six¬
teenth century, when our language was in its vigorous prime, we
must attribute its extraordinarily fine quality. Yet, if any one
man deserves especial praise for his share in the work, it is Tin-
dale. More than four-fifths both of the New Testament and of
the Pentateuch is his; and the influence of his magnificent prose
is manifest throughout the whole version. He described himself
with sincere humility as “speechless and rude, dull and slow-
witted”; but, if he had not the pen of a ready writer, there was
magic in his style. As a scholar he was laborious, accurate, and
honest. For him “every part of Scripture had one sense and one
only, the sense in the mind of the writer.” He regarded his work
as a Divine Service to which he had been called, and solemnly pro-
The Story of the Bible
111
tested that he never altered one syllable against his conscienee.
Moreover, he fully realised that the English language is
peeuliarly fitted to translate the Bible. “The Greek tongue
agreeth more with the English than with the Latin. And the
properties of the Hebrew tongue agree a thousand times more
with the English than with the Latin.” Above all, he sought to
serve the common people. In early manhood, speaking to one of
his Cambridge friends, he said, “If God spare me life, ere many
years I will cause the boy that driveth the plough to know more
of the Scriptures than you do.” The spirit which inspired Tin-
dale gave us the Authorised Version.
It is almost impossible to exaggerate the influence of that
Version on the English language and on English thought. The
Bible made English Puritanism; and the Puritan tradition has
fostered in the British and American peoples most of their best
and distinctive qualities. From the Bible Milton and Bunyan
took the inspiration of their poetry and allegory. In the Bible
Cromwell and the Pilgrim F athers found that which made them
honourable, self-rehant, and stedfast. Bible in hand, Wesley
and Whitefleld transformed their country. In England all the
great Victorians, and in America men so diverse as Emerson and
Walt Whitman, showed the direct influence of the Authorised
Version. It fashioned the art of Browning and George Eliot,
Buskin and Watts. John Bright, supreme among English ora¬
tors in the nineteenth century, was essentially a man of one book,
the Bible. So, too, was Abraham Lincoln, genius alike in state¬
craft and speech.
The Bible is still the most precious part of the common
heritage of the Anglo-Saxon races. The surface of our common
culture is littered by transient enthusiasms, vulgar emotions, and
moral wreckage; but below strong currents move steadily. In
large measure these currents flow from the Bible, which now for
four centuries has been the ultimate source of Anglo-Saxon
idealism. The Bible has shaped the English language ; but it has
112
The Outline of Literature
also been the supreme spiritually-creative force in the civilisation
of the British Empire and the American Commonwealth.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. C. Burkitt: The Gospel History and its Transmission (1911).
R. H. Charles: Religious Development between the Old and New
Testaments (1914).
J. G. Frazer: Folk-lore in the Old Testament (3 vols.) (1919).
J. Hastings: Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols.) (1900-4).
W. R. Inge: Essay on St. Paul in Outspoken Essays, First Series (1919).
R. A. S. Macalister: The Philistines (1913).
A. Nairne: The Faith of the Old Testament (1914) and The Faith of the
New Testament (1920).
A. S. Peake: Commentary on the Bible (1920).
H. E. Ryle: The Canon of the Old Testament (1892).
G. Adam Smith: Historical Geography of the Holy Land (1896).
W. Robertson Smith: The Religion of the Semites (1889).
R. C. Trench: Notes on the Parables.
IV
THE ENGLISH BIBLE AS LITERATURE
VOL. 1 — 8
113
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THE ENGLISH BIBLE AS LITERATURE
SOME considerations of the Bible as literature may well be
added to Canon Barnes’s scholarly description of its
history.
There are people who demur to the study of the Bible as
literature on the ground that the Word of God should he spared
this kind of examination. Although it is difficult to take the con¬
tention seriously it is necessary to answer it. The best reason
for studying the Bible as literature is that it is literature. The
books of the Bible have every characteristic of literature, and in
the course of time they have been subject to all the adventures
and misadventures which beset literary documents.
To consider the Bible as literature is not to neglect, much
less to deny, its sacred character. Indeed, those who still accept
the doctrine of literal inspiration should be the first to perceive
that the Divine method of expression would be itself divine, and
that it would consist in using the most beautiful and moving
language known to the men to whom it was delivered. If that be
so, then the study of the beauty of the Bible as literature is more
than relevant to the general study of the Bible as the Word of
God,
§ 1
The Bible and our National Style
The highest advantage of the study of the Bible as literature
is that it enables us, in some real measure, to understand what
115
116
The Outline of Literature
the Bible means. Written originally in Hebrew and Greek, pain¬
fully and inaccurately copied, doubtfully translated, transmitted
to us through a thousand mists of doctrine and prejudice, it is yet
still infused with the poetry, the visions, the metaphor, and the
folklore of the East, to all of which we are alien. Thus the Bible,
of all books, needs a commentary, and until comparatively recent
years the kind of commentary which it has most conspicuously
lacked is that which Literature alone can supply. “To under¬
stand that the language of the Bible is fluid, passing, and literary,
not rigid, fixed, and scientific, is the first step towards a right
understanding of the Bible,” says Matthew Arnold. To read the
Bible literally is the way to scepticism ; to read it as literature is
the way to essential and reasonable belief. Burns knew this when
he wrote his “Cotter’s Saturday Night.” In two stanzas of that
beautiful descriptive poem he presents the two great aspects of
the English Bible ; its messages to the soul and conscience, and its
indestructible literary quahty. Take them in this order:
The cheerfu’ supper done, wi’ serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ;
The sire turns o’er with patriarchal grace.
The big ha' Bible, ance his father’s pride:
His bonnet reverently is laid aside.
His lyart happets ^ wearing thin and bare ;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide.
He wales ^ a portion with judicious care;
And “Let us worship God,” he says, with solemn air.
The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare rage
With Amalek’s ungracious progeny ;
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire;
Or J ob’s pathetic plaint and wailing cry ;
Or rapt Isaiah’s wild seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
* Lyart happets, grey temples. a Wales, chooses.
Photo: Rischgttz Collection.
“the dawn of the reformation”
(After W. T. Jeames, R.A.)
Wycliffe at Lutterworth sending out his “poor preachers " with the translation of the Bible {circa 1378)
Photo: Rtschgttz Collection.
READING THE BIBLE IN THE CRYPT OF OLD ST. PAUL’s CATHEDRAL
(After Sir George Harvey.)
The first-fruit of the Reformation in England was the reading of the Bible by the common people in England in various versions.
These were expensive and rare, and for safety the Bible in churches was always chained.
The English Bible as Literature
117
Broadly speaking, in the first stanza we have the Bible as the
Word of God, in the second the Bible as literature. The one and
the other make that Bible which has passed into the life and
speech of the people, ennobling both.
Sir Arthur Quiller Couch, lecturing at Cambridge on
“Reading the Bible,” has placed before his students a few great
sentences like these:
Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty: they shall
behold the land that is very far off.
And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind,
and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry
place and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorrup¬
tion, and this mortal shall have put on immortality . . .
Then he says:
When a nation has achieved this manner of diction, these
rhythms for its dearest beliefs, a literature is surely estab¬
lished. . . . The Authorised Version set a seal on our
national style. ... It has cadences homely and sublime,
yet so harmonises them that the voice is always one. Simple
men — holy men of heart like Izaak Walton and Bunyan —
have their lips touched and speak to the homelier tune.
Bunyan derived his thought and his style from the English
Bible. And Bunyan’s Grace Abounding and his Pilgrim’s Pro¬
gress lead us back to this well of homely religion and English un¬
defiled. Bunyan knew the Authorised Version of the English
Bible as perhaps no other man has known it. Its language be¬
came his breath. In passage after passage of The Pilgrim’s
Progress we seem to be reading the Bible through the medium of
his own words. Take these words of Mr. Greatheart in the
Valley of the Shadow:
This is like doing business in great Waters, or like go¬
ing down into the deep ; this is like being in the heart of the
118
The Outline of Literature
Sea, and like going down to the Bottoms of the Mountains:
Now it seems as if the Earth with its bars were about us for
ever. But let them that walk in darkness and have no light,
trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon their God.
For my Part, as I have told you already, I have gone often
through this Valley, and have been mueh harder put to it
than now I am, and yet you see I am alive. I would not
boast, for that I am not mine own Saviour. But I trust we
shall have a good deliveranee. Come let us pray for light
to Him that ean lighten our darkness, and that can rebuke,
not only these, but all the Satans in Hell.
The language of the Bible shaped the speech of England, and
Bunyan learned to use that language better than anyone else.
In The Pilgrim s Progress the common people found no word or
sentence they did not understand.
Tributes to the Authorised Version
The Professor of English Literature in Cambridge Uni¬
versity continues :
Proud men, scholars — Milton, Sir Thomas Browne — prac¬
tise the rolling Latin sentence, but upon the rhythms of
the Bible they, too, fall back. . . . The precise man
Addison cannot excel one parable in brevity or in heavenly
clarity: the two parts of Johnson’s antithesis come to no
more than this, ‘'Our Lord has gone up to the sound of a
trumpet; with the sound of a trump our Lord has gone up”
The Bible controls its enemy Gibbon as surely as it haunts
the curious music of a light sentence of Thackeray’s. It is
in everything we see, hear, feel, because it is in us, in our
blood.
Coleridge said that it “will keep any man from being vulgar
in point of style.” Assuredly it kept the Bedford tinker from be¬
ing vulgar, and hardly less Daniel Defoe. The Bible profoundly
influenced Buskin’s style; “it is ingrained,” says his biographer,
“in the texture of almost every piece from his pen.” Macaulay
The English Bible as Literature
119
refers to our Bible as “a book whieh, if everything else in our
language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole
extent of its beauty and power.” Milton declared: “There are
no songs comparable to the songs of Zion, no orations equal to
those of the prophets.” Landor wrote to a friend: “I am heartily
glad to witness your veneration for a book which, to say nothing
of its holiness or authority, contains more specimens of genius and
taste than any other volume in existence.” And Hobbes had the
literary study of the Bible in mind when he shrewdly wrote in
“Leviathan”:
It is not the bare words but the scope of the writer that
giveth the true light hy which any writing is to be inter¬
preted; and they that insist upon single texts, without con¬
sidering the main design, can derive nothing from them
clearly; but rather by casting atoms of Scripture as dust
before men’s eyes, make everything more obscure than it is.
It has sometimes been asked whether the Authorised Version
of 1604-11 could have been done without the aid of men of
letters, and even one or more poets. How could the cadences of
the Psalms, the sublime questions and answers of the Book of
Job, the rhapsodies of Isaiah, and the eloquence of Paul at
Athens have been rendered by forty-seven scholars of whom not
one has left his mark on literature? The extraordinary sugges¬
tion has been made that Shakespeare who, in 1604, was at the
height of his genius, may have been called in to give poetry and
majesty to our Bible. Such surmises are not needed. The Eng¬
lish language was then at its highest pitch and purity. Shake¬
speare had written most of his plays; two years earlier he had
written Hamlet. The Elizabethan lyrical poets had taught
Englishmen the music of their tongue. Spenser’s verse was the
river of that music. Dramatists like Massinger, Marlowe, Beau¬
mont and Fletcher, Marston, and Webster had brought up their
cohorts of words and splendid phrasings. Literature was in the
120
The Outline of Literature
air. Never had there been a time so favourable to great results,
nor has there been one since.
§ 2
The English Versions
This is only part of the matter. The forty-seven did not,
as is commonly supposed, produce a creative version of the Bible.
As Canon Barnes has pointed out, they produced a new and
better one. The literary excellence of the Authorised Version
was discovered rather than achieved. The new translators found
it in all the English versions on which they worked, chiefly in
those of Tindale and Coverdale. Wycliffe’s translation from the
Vulgate, completed by other hands so early as 1388, aided them
the least. The wellspring was William Tindale, who had added
to scholarship a command of noble English. He worked on the
basis of Erasmus’s Greek and Latin texts, the Vulgate, and
Luther’s German translations. On one side of the door of St.
Dunstan’s Church in Fleet Street the head of Tindale is carved
in stone. The journalists who day by day inform or beguile the
million are reminded of the man who vowed he would make the
Bible known to the Enghsh ploughboy. And he did. When
the Emperor Charles had him strangled in what is now a suburb
of Brussels the ploughboy was on the way to read the Scriptures
in the language of his fathers, and the habit of reading was being
planted in England.
Miles Coverdale’s Bible of 1535 was translated from the
Latin and German with much reference to Tindale, and is often
superior to Tindale’s in its music. Matthew’s Bible, edited by
John Rogers, the Smithfield martyr, appeared in 1537 and
contained unpublished versions by Tindale of the book of
Joshua onwards to the end of the second book of Chronicles.
This Bible, something of a patchwork, was followed by the Great
Bible, edited drastically by Coverdale; it was the first English
Bible printed with government authority.
Photo: Anderso
ST. PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS,” BY RAPHAEL
The Vatican, Rome.
■‘For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring."-
Acts xvii.
I
Photo: W. A. Mansell b* Co.
“ISAAC BLESSING JACOB,” BY MURILLO
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
“ God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine: let people serve thee and nations
bow down to thee : be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and
blessed be he that blesseth thee.” — Genesis xxvii.
The English Bible as Literature 121
A rather later version is of interest beeause it was trans¬
lated at Geneva by English exiles from England who had fled
the Marian persecutions. While they laboured under the Alpine
snows the fires of Smithfield were smoking. They were thus oc¬
cupied for two years, and had not finished their revision when
Elizabeth’s accession made them free to return. This “Genevan”
Bible was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth in 1560. It was more
literal than those of Tindale and Coverdale, and also better
founded on the Hebrew for the Old Testament and the Greek
for the New. It is still known as the “Breeches Bible,” from its
rendering of Genesis iii. 7 : “They sewed fig-leaves together and
made themselves breeches.”
The later Bishops’ Bible, 1568, superintended by Arch¬
bishop Parker, was virtually the immediate forerunner of the
Authorised Version. It became known as the “Treacle Bible”
from its text (Jeremiah viii. 22) : “Is there no treacle in Gilead?”
Four Versions Compared
When, therefore. King James’s translators met in West¬
minster and Cambridge to give us the Bible of to-day they had a
wealth of original and interpreted literature on which to work.
They were instructed to follow the Bishops’ Bible as closely as
possible. Actually, their finest passages are from Tindale. It
is instructive to take a view of the development of the language
and literary quality of the English Bible, by quoting, in succes¬
sion, the renderings of one short passage, Hebrews i. 7-9, as they
appear in four versions, using the conspectus appended to Dr.
Frederic G. Kenyon’s Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts.
As he remarks, it will be seen how greatly Tindale’s translation
has influenced the others, not least the Authorised Version:
Tindale, 1525
And vnto the angels he sayth: He maketh his angels
spretes, and his ministers flammes of fyre. But vnto the
122
The Outline of Literature
sonne he sayth:- God thy seate shal be for ever and ever. The
cepter of thy kyngdom is a right cepter. Thou hast loved
rightewesnes and hated iniquitie: Wherfore hath god, which
is thy god, anoynted the with the oyle off gladnes above thy
felowes.
The Bishops’ Bible, 1568
7. And vnto the Angels he sayth: He maketh his
Angels spirites, and his ministers a flambe of fyre.
8. But vnto the sonne (he sayth) Thy seate O God
(shalbe) for euer and euer: The scepter of thy kingdom (is)
a scepter of ryghteousnesse.
9. Thou hast loued ryghteousnesse, and hated iniquitie :
Therefore God, euen thy God, hath annoynted thee with
the oyle of gladnesse, aboue thy fellowes.
The Authorised Version, 1611 {in the original spelling)
7. And of the Angels he saith : Who maketh his Angels
spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.
8. But vnto the Sonne, he saith. Thy throne, O God,
is for euer and euer : a scepter of righteousnesse is the scepter
of thy kingdome.
9. Thou hast loued righteousnesse, and hated iniquitie,
therefore God, euen thy God, hath anointed thee with the
oyle of gladnesse aboue thy fellowes.
The Revised Version, 1881
7. And of the angels he saith.
Who maketh his angels winds.
And his ministers a flame of fire :
8. but of the Son he saith.
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever :
And the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of
thy kingdom.
Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity ;
Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee
With the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
Photo: Neurdein.
“job in his affliction,’’ by LEON BONNAT
The Luxembourg, Paris.
“Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring
me into dust again? . . . Are not my days few? Cease then, and let me alone, that I
may take comfort a little, before I go whence I shall not return.” — Job x.
The English Bible as Literature
123
§ 3
An Error of Form
In the last version the passage is printed, as it ought to be,
as poetry. In our Authorised Version, prose is cut up into
“verses” (an arrangement unknown until the Genevan trans¬
lators adopted it), but all the sweet or magnificent outbursts of
poetry are printed as prose. For these reasons Professor Moul¬
ton declares roundly in his invaluable work. The Literary Study
of the Bible, that the Bible is the worst printed book in the world.
The eye is not allowed to help the mind in recognising its literary
structure. It is as though we printed the poems of Shelley and
Wordsworth as prose. Thus even the full beauty of the last
words of the Sermon on the Mount is veiled by the form given to
them. Yet these words are a perfect example of that Hebrew
poetry into which the prose of the Bible suddenly breaks when
the feeling is exalted or the imagination touched:
Everyone therefore which heareth these words of mine,
and doeth them,
shall be likened unto a Wise Man,
which built his house upon the Rock :
And the rain descended,
and the floods came,
and the winds blew,
and beat upon that house;
and it fell not ;
for it was founded upon the Rock.
And everyone that heareth these words of mine,
and doeth them not,
shall be likened unto a Foolish Man,
which built his house upon the Sand:
And the rain descended,
and the floods came,
and the winds blew,
and smote upon that house ;
and it fell:
and great was the fall thereof !
124
The Outline of Literature
These stanzas are from the Revised Version of 1881, in which
several expressions are changed for the better. Here we have a
beautiful poem in the free verse of the Hebrews. Note its per¬
fect parallelism.
Parallelism in Hebrew Poetry
Parallelism of thought and expression — a sort of magnified
alliteration — is the distinctive mark of all Hebrew poetry, of its
proverbial literature, and of much of its narrative. Professor
Moulton well described its movement. “Like the swing of a
pendulum to and fro, like the tramp of an army marching in step,
the versification of the Bible moves with a rhythm of parallel
lines”; and he illustrated this neatly to his students by referring
them to verses 8-15 of the 105th Psalm. First read the passage,
omitting all the alternate or parallel lines, thus :
He hath remembered his convenant for ever: the cove¬
nant which he made with Abraham, and confirmed the same
unto Jacob for a statute, saying, “Unto thee will I give the
land of Canaan,” when they were but a few men in number,
and they went about from nation to nation. He suffered
no man to do them wrong, saying, “Touch not mine anointed
ones.”
You are now to read the passage in full, that is preserving all the
parallelisms. What was prose is suddenly transmuted into a
grand movement of verse :
He hath remembered his covenant for ever.
The word which he commanded to a thousand generations ;
The covenant which he made with Abraham,
And his oath unto Isaac ;
And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a statute.
To Israel for an everlasting covenant:
Saying, “Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan,
The lot of your inheritance”:
When they were but a few men in number;
Yea, very few, and sojourners in it;
Photo: IF. A. Mansell b‘ Co.
H.VGAR AND ISHMAEL
And she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. And the water was spent in the bottle.” — Genesis x.xi.
The English Bible as Literature
125
And they went about from nation to nation,
From one kingdom to another people.
He suffered no man to do them wrong:
Yea, he reproved kings for their sakes ;
Saying, “Touch not mine anointed ones.
And do my prophets no harm.”
The entire Book of Job, excepting only the first two chap¬
ters, and part of the last, is poetry, and ought never to have been
printed in any other form. Only then can we appreciate the full
majesty of such a passage as this:
Hast thou given the horse strength?
Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?
Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper?
The glory of his nostrils is terrible.
He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength:
He goeth on to meet the armed men.
He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted:
Neither turneth he back from the sword.
The quiver rattleth against him.
The glittering spear and the shield.
He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage:
Neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet.
He saith among the trumpets, Ha, Ha :
And he smelleth the battle afar off.
The thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
Or this :
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Declare, if thou hast understanding.
Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest?
Or who hath stretched the line upon it?
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened?
Or who laid the corner stone thereof?
When the morning stars sang together.
And all the sons of God shouted for joy.
Or who shut up the sea with the doors.
When it broke forth as if it had issued out of the womb?
When I made the cloud the garment thereof.
And thick darkness a swaddling band for it.
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And brake up for it my decreed place,
And set bars and doors,
And said. Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further:
And here shall thy proud waves be stayed.
This parallelism obtains through all the moods of Hebrew
poetry, though with variations which cannot here be displayed.
And it is found to be almost miraculously appropriate to literary
forms which are far apart. It gives pungency to mere worldly
wisdom, as in Proverbs vi, 6:
Go to the ant, thou sluggard;
Consider her ways, and be wise:
Which having no guide.
Overseer, or ruler,
Provideth her meat in the summer.
And gathereth her food in the harvest.
How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard?
And when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to sleep:
So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth.
And thy want as an armed man.
In passing, note that wonderfully true and deadly simile, “as one
that travelleth” — one that has far to come, may be, but yet comes
nearer and nearer and at last arrives like footsore doom.
But now consider the different effect of the principle of
repetition in the barbaric song of Deborah:
The kings came and fought.
Then fought the kings of Canaan
In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo.
They took no gain of money.
They fought from heaven;
The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
The river of Kishon swept them away.
That ancient river, the river Kishon.
O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength.
Photo: Brogi.
THE MEETING OF JACOB AND RACHEL, BY PACECCO DE ROSA
National Museum, Naples.
‘‘And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep: for she kept them.” — Genesis xxix.
Photo: Neiirdein.
“the triumph of DAVID,” BY MATTEO ROSSELLI
The Louvre, Paris.
And David took the head of the Philistine, and brought it to Jerusalem.” — i Samuel xvii.
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127
Then were the horsehoofs broken,
By the means of the pransings, the pransings of their mighty ones.
Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be,
Blessed shall she be above women in the tent.
He asked water, and she gave him milk ;
She brought forth butter in a lordly dish.
She put her hand to the nail.
And her right hand to the workmen’s hammer;
And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head,
When she had pierced and stricken through his temples.
At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down :
At her feet he bowed, he fell:
Where he bowed, there he fell down dead.
“A Balance of Thought”
In the Hebrew literature this principle of repetition — found
in all others in degree — is so predominant that it simplifies the
whole problem of translation. Matthew Arnold pointed out that
by reason of its comparative omnipresence the effect of Hebrew
poetry “can be preserved and rendered in a foreign language
as the effect of other great poetry cannot.” The effect of Homer,
of Virgil, or of Dante can never be successfully rendered because
the literary architecture of these poets has to be pulled to pieces
and cannot be rebuilt to alien music. “Isaiah’s, on the other hand,
is a poetry, as is well known, of parallelism; it depends not on
metre and rh5mie, but on a balance of thought, conveyed by a
corresponding balance of sentence; and the effect of this can be
transferred to another language.” One may open the book of
Isaiah almost at random and discover the truth of this law. Take
this passage:
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare
ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a high¬
way for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every
mountain and hill shall be laid low ; and the crooked shall be
made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory
of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it to-
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gether : for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The voice
said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is
grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the
field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the
spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely all flesh is grass.
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: hut the word of our
God shall stand for ever.
This passage, like hundreds of others, serves to illustrate another
habit of Hebrew poetry which has everything to do with its per¬
manence. Metaphor is the soul of poetry, and here all the meta¬
phors are simple and natural. The visions called up are such as
are native to man’s understanding in all ages : the pathless desert,
the frowning hills, the grass of the field.
§ 4
The Hebrew Mind
The Hebrew mind was simple and the Hebrew eye was
fixed on the common objects of life. The sun, the moon, and the
stars, the wind and the rain, the darkness, and depth of the sea,
the cedars of Lebanon, the bulls of Bashan, the well or the pool,
the winepress, the mill, the corn yellow to harvest, the green
pastures and still waters, the rose of Sharon, the great rock in a
weary land, the potter’s wheel, the husbandman’s toil, the spar¬
row and the eagle, the wild goats and calving hinds, the hen
gathering her chickens, silver and gold, spear and shield, flesh
and bone — such are the objects of life, common to all ages, to
which these old poets went for their imagery. In that immortal
rhapsody on love at first sight, Solomon’s Song, how marvel¬
lously are the swoonings and raptures of love expressed through
the medium of everyday things:
Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah,
Comely as Jerusalem,
Terrible as an army with banners.
Turn away thine eyes from me,
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129
For they have overcome me:
Thy hair is a flock of goats
That appear from Gilead.
Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep
Which go up from the washing . . .
As a piece of pomegranate are thy temples
Within thy locks.
Who is she that looketh forth as the morning.
Fair as the moon,
Clear as the sun.
And terrible as an army with banners.?*
I went down into the garden of nuts
To see the fruits of the valley.
And to see whether the vine flourished.
And the pomegranates budded.
Or ever I was aware, my soul made me
Like the chariots of Ammi-nadib.
Beyond this realism Hebrew poetry never stretches. The ab¬
stract is unknown to it.
Yet there is another secret of the permanence of the Bible
as literature at once simpler and greater. Human nature and its
working-out in reward or punishment, the wisdom of life and the
penalties of ignorance or neglect, have not changed since Abra¬
ham sat in the door of his tent in the heat of the day. They have
not changed since he rose up early and saw Sodom and Gomorrah
go up “as the smoke of a furnace.” They have not changed
since Sarah was jealous of Hagar, and Abraham groaned to cast
out his bondwoman because of his son Ishmael; nor since he
saddled his ass to take Isaac into the land Moriah to be a burnt
offering to Jehovah. They have not changed since Isaac went out
to meditate in the field at eventide, expectant of his bride, and
saw the camels coming; nor since Esau was honest and foolish,
and Jacob wily and wise; nor since Rachel came to water her
father’s sheep at the well of Haran; nor since Joseph’s brethren
VOL. I — 9
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said, “Behold this dreamer cometh,” and cast him into a pit, and
afterwards knew the dreamer as the master of Egypt and their
own protector. They have not changed since Moses, accepting
his own doom, said to Israel :
The eternal God is thy refuge,
And underneath are the everlasting arms;
nor since Ruth said to her husband’s mother:
Intreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after
thee; for whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodg-
est I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God
my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be
buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but
death part thee and me.
They have not ehanged since David triumphed over Goliath or
Samson succumbed to the craft of Delilah.
If we turn to the New Testament, where in all the literature
of all peoples shall we find a more moving story than this?
And he said unto them. What manner of communica¬
tions are these that ye have one to another as ye walk, and
are sad? And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas,
answering, said unto him. Art thou only a stranger in Jeru¬
salem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass
there in these days? And he said unto them. What things?
And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth,
which was a Prophet, mighty in deed and word before God,
and all the people. And how the chief Priests and our rulers
delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified
him. But we trusted that it had been he, which should have
redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day
sinee these things were done. Yea, and certain women also
of our company made us astonished, which were early at the
Sepulchre; and when they found not his body, they came,
saying that they had also seen a vision of Angels, which said
“And the Angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said. Here am I. And
he said. Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing
thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me." — Genesis xxii.
Photo: Hanfstaengl.
“the SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM,” BY REMBRANDT
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg
Pholo: AUnari.
“the supper at EMMAUS. by REMBRANDT VAN RYN
The Louvre, Paris.
“And their eyes were opened, and they knew him.” — Luke xxi?
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131
that he was alive. And certain of them which were with us,
went to the Sepulchre, and found it even so as the women
had said, but him they saw not. Then he said unto them, O
fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have
spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and
to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses, and all
the Prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures,
the things concerning himself. And they drew nigh unto
the village, whither they went, and he made as though he
would have gone further. But they constrained him, saying.
Abide with us, for it is towards evening, and the day is far
spent : And he went in, to tarry with them. And it came to
pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed
it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were
opened, and they knew him, and he vanished out of their
sight. And they said one unto another. Did not our heart
burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while
he opened to us the Scriptures?
Simplicity and beauty of narrative can go no further.
Other Hebrew Poetry
The sacred associations of the New Testament make it diffi¬
cult to treat some of its most sublime passages as literature. In
a lower degree the same may be said of the Old Testament. But
there is a portion of Hebrew literature which, being apart from
the whole and yet of it, can he studied with deep advantage and
may even be the best door by which to enter the subject. We re¬
fer, of course, to the Apocrypha. At the age of sixty-three Dr.
Samuel Johnson, the best-read man of his time, and one of the
best-read men of all time, wrote in his diary, “I have never yet
read the Apocrypha.” Inasmuch as the Apocrypha contains lit¬
erature of surpassing beauty, and a wisdom of life hardly less
exalted than any that we find in the Old Testament, this was a
strange confession. It went, indeed, a little farther than the
facts, for Johnson added, “I have sometimes looked into the
Maccabees, and read a chapter containing the question. Which is
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the strongest? — I think in Esdras.” The story is one of the finest
in the Apocrypha. It tells how three young men of the guard of
King Darius proposed that they should compete for the utmost
favour of the King, to sit next to him, and to be called his cousin;
and that the winner of this essay competition (for such in fact it
was) should be he who most wisely answered the question, “What
is the strongest thing in the world?”
The first wrote, “Wine is the strongest,” and gave his rea¬
sons; the second wrote, “The King is the strongest,” and gave
his reasons; the third wrote, “Women are strongest, but above all
things truth beareth away the victory.” They read their replies
before the King and a great concourse. The third competitor
showed that women had borne the King, and all rulers, and all
people, and that they led and ruled all men by their love and
beauty, and their spells. But he concluded ;
Great is the truth, and stronger than all things. All
the earth calleth upon the truth, and the heaven blesseth it,
all works shake and tremble at it, and with it is no un¬
righteous thing.
Wine is wicked, the King is wicked, women are wicked,
all the children of men are wicked, and such are all their
wicked works, and there is no truth in them. In their un¬
righteousness also they shall perish.
As for the truth it endureth, and is always strong, it
liveth and conquereth evermore.
With her there is no accepting of persons, or rewards,
but she doeth the things that are just, and refraineth from
all unjust and wicked things, and all men do well like of her
works. Neither in her judgment is any unrighteousness,
and she is the strength, kingdom, power and majesty of all
ages. Blessed be the God of truth.
All the people shouted assent, and Darius told the young man to
ask of him what he would, “and more than was appointed in the
writing,” and to sit next to him, and be called his cousin.
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133
So that, although Dr. Johnson had not read the Apocrypha,
he had read a passage which must have appealed profoundly to
him as a man who once said humbly, “Sir, I considered myself as
entrusted with a certain portion of truth,” and on another occa¬
sion, “Without truth there must be a dissolution of society.”
The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon contains splendid
passages. Hear the writer’s praise of Wisdom:
Wisdom reacheth from one end to another mightily,
And sweetly doth she order all things.
I loved her and sought her out.
From my youth I desired to make her my spouse.
And I was a lover of her beauty.
In that she is conversant with God, she magnifieth her nobility:
Yea, the Lord of all things himself loved her.
If a man desire much experience:
She knoweth things of old, and conjectureth aright what is to come:
She knoweth the subtleties of speeches, and can expound dark sentences :
She forseeth signs and wonders, and the events of seasons and times.
Therefore I purposed to take her to me to live with me.
Knowing that she would be a counsellor of good things.
And a comfort in cares and grief.
Thus is Wisdom praised, but now hear Wisdom praise herself in
the wild and lofty music of Hebrew poetry through the pen of
Jesus the son of Sirach, the writer of “Ecclesiasticus” :
I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus,
And as a cypress tree upon the mountains of Hermon.
I was exalted like a palm tree in Engaddi,
And as a rose-plant in Jericho,
And as a fair olive tree in a pleasant field.
And grew up as a plane tree by the water.
I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon, and aspalathus.
And I yielded a pleasant odour like the best myrrh,
As Galbanum and Onyx, and sweet Storax,
And as the fume of frankincense in the Tabernacle.
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I also came out as a brook from a river,
And as a conduit into a garden.
I said, I will water my best garden,
And will water abundantly my garden bed:
And lo, my brook became a river.
And my river became a sea.
I will yet make doctrine to shine as the morning.
And will send forth her light afar olf :
I will yet pour out doctrine as prophecy.
And leave it to all ages for ever.
Such is the exalted poetry, such the exhaustion of language, to
be found in the Apocrypha.
Two Noble Eulogies
In addition, it is packed with worldly wisdom, common
sense, shrewd counsels about marriage and friendship, and lend¬
ing and borrowing, and bargaining, and tact, and everyday pru¬
dence. One could show some of our best-known proverbs can
be traced to these books. But we conclude by quoting a passage
in which the writer we have just quoted turns his eyes — ^with a
charity surpassing, perhaps, anything in the canonical books of
the Old Testament — on the average man. After picturing the
ploughman, the ox-driver, the carpenter, the graver of seals, the
smith, and the poor potter, each at his work, he exclaims :
Without these cannot a city be inhabited.
And they shall not dwell where they will, nor go up and down:
They shall not be sought for in public counsel.
Nor sit high in the congregation:
They shall not sit on the Judges’ seat.
Nor understand the sentence of judgment:
They cannot declare justice, and judgment.
And they shall not be found where parables are spoken.
But they mil maintain the state of the world
And all their desire is in the work of their craft.
That may not be the whole of man’s civic wisdom, or of his social
vision, to-day, but if not it is one of the noblest eulogies ever
The English Bible as Literature
135
penned. It deserves to be as well known as that great tribute to
genius and leadership in the same book:
Let us now praise famous men,
And our Fathers that begat us.
The Lord hath wrought great glory by them,
Through his great power from the beginning,
Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms.
Men renowned for their power.
Giving counsel by their understanding.
And declaring prophecies*. . . .
Such as found out musical tunes,
And recited verses in writing.
Rich men furnished with ability.
Living peaceably in their habitations.
All these were honoured in their generations,
And were the glory of their times.
Their seed shall remain for ever.
And their glory shall not be blotted out.
Their bodies are buried in peace.
But their name liveth for evermore.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Literary Study of the Bible: An Account of the Leading Forms of
Literature represented in the Sacred Writings. By Richard G. Moulton,
M.A. (Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons).
Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews. Translated from the
Latin of Robert T. Lowth, D.D., 1787.
The Bible in English Literature. By J. H. Gardiner (T. Fisher Unwin).
The English Bible: An External and Critical History of the various Eng¬
lish Translations of Scripture. By John Eadie, D.D. (Macmillan).
An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament. By S. R.
Driver, D.D. T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh (International Theological
Library) .
The Psalms in Human Life. By Rowland E. Prothero, M.V.O. (Lord
Ernie) (John Murray).
Passages of the Bible chosen for their Literary Beauty and Interest. By
Sir J. G. Frazer (A. & C. Black).
136
The Outline of Literature
The Literary Man’s Bible: A Selection of Passages from the Old Testa¬
ment, Historic, Poetic and Philosophic, illustrating Hebrew Literature, with
Introductory Essays and Annotations. Edited by W. L. Courtney (Chapman
& Hall).
The Literary Man’s New Testament; the Boohs arranged in Chronological
Order, with Introductory Essays and Annotations. By W. L. Courtney (Chap¬
man and Hall).
The History of the English Bible. By W. F. Moulton (Epworth
Press).
English Versions of the Bible: A Handbook with copious examples illus¬
trating the Ancestry and Relationship of the several Versions. By Rev. J. I.
Momhert (Samuel Bagster & Sons).
Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, being a History of the Text and
its Translations. By Sir Frederic G. Kenyon (Eyre & Spottiswoode).
The Building of the Bible, showing the Chronological Order in which the
Books of the Old and New Testaments appeared according to recent Biblical
criticism. By F. J. Gould (Watts & Co.).
On the Art of Reading. Pages 141-182. Quiller- Couch.
The English Bible. J. Eadie. Macmillan.
V
THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST
137
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THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST
Every religion has its sacred book — generally a collection
of hymns, legends, theological speculation, and direc¬
tions for ceremonial rites. There is one curious differ¬
ence between the Bible of the Christians and any other of the
world’s sacred books. Christianity is mainly the religion of the
Western world — of Europe and America — but its Bible came to
the West from the East. The Sacred Books with which this
cjiapter is concerned were for the most part the creations of the
countries where they are still held in veneration, and when that
is not the case, as with the writings of Gautama the Buddha and
Zoroaster, of contiguous countries. Wisdom comes from the
East, but the wisdom that remains in the East is far less virile
wisdom than the wisdom that has travelled westward. With the
exception of the Koran and the Granth of the Sikhs, the Sacred
Books of the East had their origin in a remote antiquity, and are
sometimes the almost haphazard collection of the work of many
men living in many ages.
§ 1
THE VEDAS OF THE BRAHMANS
Thirty-three thousand Gods
The first of the Sacred Books in order of antiquity are the
Vedas of the Brahmans. The Hindus, the adherents of the social
conventions and complex polytheism generally known as Hindu¬
ism, form 70 per cent, of the population of the Indian peninsula.
139
140
The Outline of Literature
Racially they are in part descended from the Aryans, who, in an
early stage of the world’s history, crossed the Himalayas from
the high plateau which was the cradle of the Aryan race. As is,
of course, well known, all the great European races — ^the Latins,
the Teutons, the Celts, and the Scandinavians — are of Aryan
descent, as are the people of Persia. India was already thickly
inhabited when the Aryans moved south, bringing with them
their religion and their culture. The consequence was a mixture
of races, the Aryan element retaining the position of an aristo¬
cracy through the caste system, and the development of a curious
and almost incomprehensible religion. Hinduism, to apply one
generic name to the system which includes the worship of thirty-
three thousand different gods, almost every village having its own
particular deity, is a degradation of Brahmanism, which, in its
original pure form, was brought from the north by the Aryan
invaders four thousand years ago.
Most religions owe their institution to one great personality
— Christianity to Jesus Christ, Buddhism to Buddha, Confucian¬
ism to Confucius, and so on. Hinduism and Brahmanism, on the
other hand, cannot be traced back to any one great teacher.
Orthodox Brahmanism teaches the existence of an all-embracing
spirit called Brahma, the original cause and the ultimate goal of
all living things. At its beginning, therefore, Brahmanism was as
absolutely monotheistic as Mohammedanism itself. But with the
conception of an abstract all-embracing deity there arose a second
belief in the existence of three great gods, each representing one
aspect of absolute power. These gods are Brahma, the creator;
Vishnu, the preserver; and Siva, the destroyer. According to
an Indian legend, the first Brahma created the primordial waters,
and in them placed a seed which became a golden egg. In this
egg Brahma, the creator, was born, and after his birth he created
the heaven and the earth from the two halves of the shell from
which he had come. Another myth states that Brahma was born
from a lotus which grew out of the body of the god Vishnu.
The Sacred Books of the East
141
Brahma, the creator, is usually represented as a bearded man
with four heads and four hands. One hand holds a sceptre, the
emblem of power; another a bundle of leaves representing the
Vedas, the sacred books which will presently be described;
another a bottle of water from the Ganges, the Hindu sacred
river ; and the fourth a string of beads, of course representing
prayer. It should be said that though Brahma is one of the three
great titular deities of Brahmanism and Hinduism, he is by no
means a popular god. In all India there are only four temples
dedicated to his worship, and he possesses far fewer devotees than
the gods of purely local eminence.
The Castes
The most important characteristic of the Hindu social
system is supplied by the castes — a religious creation. There
were originally four castes — ^the Brahmins, the priests and teach¬
ers; the Kshatriyas, the warriors; the Vaisyas, farmers, mer¬
chants, and landowners ; and the Sudras, the hewers of wood and
drawers of water. In the course of the ages, these four original
castes have been subdivided into hundreds of minor castes, but
with all the changes, the Brahmans, who took their name from
the god Brahma, have retained their pre-eminent position. Un¬
like most priests, the Brahmans marry, and generally marry
within their own caste, and they are undoubtedly more purely
Aryan than any other modern Indians.
In the religion of the Hindu village to-day with its beast¬
shaped gods; its faith in scores of amulets — dogs’ teeth, croco¬
diles’ teeth, the tusks of boars and elephants — its elaborate
sacrificial ritual and countless prayers, little remains of the
original Brahmanism except the belief in the transmigration of
souls and in the doctrine of Karma, which teaches that after
many experiences in different bodies, the number of which is de¬
termined by the good or evil deeds done in the flesh, the soul
finally finds release from individuality and is reabsorbed in
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Brahma, the all-embracing spirit. The doctrine, in other words,
is that each individual soul is like Brahma and has neither be¬
ginning nor end; the condition of every man’s existence is the
consequence of his acts in a previous existence. The soul, it is
conceived, may have renewed individual existence in varying
living forms until it is finally “freed from all taint of individuality
and released from all activity or suffering,” and finds its eternal
bliss in the all-embracing spirit Brahma.
A Feat of Memory
One must note the stubborn way in which Brahmanism and
Hinduism have continued to exist despite the idealistic teaching
of Gautama, the Buddha, despite the forceful and generally suc¬
cessful proselytism of Moslem conquerors, and despite all the
efforts of Christian missions. The Brahman remains the teacher
of the Indian people and the custodian of their traditions, and the
Brahman still learns by heart the verses of the Vedas, the sacred
writings which were recited thousands of years ago before the
ancestors of these Brahman priests made their southward trek.
When the Vedas were finally written out, they were written in
Sanscrit, now a dead language, which bears the same relation to
the languages of India as Latin bears to Italian, and which has
been preserved in the Vedas exactly as Latin has been preserved
in the ritual of the Roman Catholic Church. Though the Vedas
now exist in manuscript, the pious Brahman, as we have said, still
learns them by heart, since it was written: “Those who sell the
Vedas, and even those who write them, those also who defile them,
they shall go to hell.”
The word Veda means knowledge. The Vedas consist of
four books of hymns and prayers, four collections of prose writ¬
ings explaining the origin and the meaning of the hymns and the
prayers, and two collections of theological speculations based on
the poetical texts.
The hymns of the Rig-Veda are at least three thousand years
VISHNU, THE PRESERVER
SIVA, THE DESTROYER
BRAHMA, THE CREATOR
These drawings show the three principal gods of ancient Brahman-
im, each representing one of the qualities of the godhead.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
BUDDHA PREACHING
(Statue discovered at Sarnath, 1904 J
The great Indian philosopher, Gautama the Buddha, lived
about soo B.c. He taught that ‘‘deliverance from suffering is
to be obtained through the suppression of desire.”
The Sacred Books of the East
143
old, that is, probably three hundred years older than the oldest
book in the Bible, but they record the religious beliefs of a far
more distant age, of the time when the Aryans were still living
on the tableland north of the Himalayas, and before they had
begun their emigrations westward to become the ancestors of the
modern European peoples. So in these Vedas we have almost
the words of a generation of men, from whom we are descended
and who existed ages before the Greeks and the Romans.
The following are striking passages taken from the Upani-
shads, the philosophic section of the Vedas. The quotations are
from Dr. L. D. Barnett’s Brahma Knowledge:
Made of mind, bodied in breath, shaped in light, real of
purpose, ethereal of soul, all-working, all-desiring, all-smell¬
ing, all-tasting, grasping this All, speaking naught, heeding
naught — this is my Self within my heart, smaller than a rice-
corn, or a barley-corn, or a mustard-seed, or a canary-seed,
or the pulp of a canary-seed — this is my Self within my
heart, greater than earth, greater than sky, greater than
heaven, greater than these worlds. All-working, all-desir¬
ing, all-smelling, all-tasting, grasping this All, speaking
naught, heeding naught — this is my Self within my heart,
this is Brahma; to Him shall I win when I go hence. He
with whom it is thus has indeed no doubt.
“What is the Self?”
It is the Spirit made of understanding among the
Breaths, the inward light within the heart, that walks
abroad, abiding the same, through both worlds. He medi¬
tates, as it were; He hovers about, as it were. Turned to
sleep. He passes beyond this world, the shapes of death.
This Spirit at birth enters into the body, and is blent
with evils: at death He passes out, and leaves evils.
§ 2
THE BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES
Unlike Brahmanism, Buddhism can be traced back to the
teaching of one man, Gautama. The founder of Buddhism was
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The Outline of Literature
an Indian, and though Buddhism is an idealised development of
Brahmanism, there is only a handful of Buddhists in India to¬
day. Buddhism is related to Brahmanism somewhat as Chris¬
tianity is to Judaism, or Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.
Four-fifths of the modern Buddhists are Chinese, and large
numbers of them are found in Japan, Korea, Tibet, Siam, and
Ceylon.
The Early Days of Gautama
Gautama was born in the north of Bengal between 600 and
500 B.c. He belonged to the ruling family of the country. He
was rich and good-looking, married to a beautiful wife, and the
father of one child, but his life of ease and plenty became in¬
supportable.
When he was twenty-nine, he rode away from his home with
one servant. After he had travelled a little way, he sent the
servant back with his horse and his sword and changed clothes
with a ragged beggar, as St. Francis did generations ago. For
a time he lived in a cave with a number of learned men, and then,
after a long, lonely struggle, during which he was “the loneliest
figure in history battling for life,” he collected disciples in the
city of Benares and taught them his doctrines. Gautama was
one of the splendid figures in world-history — lonely, self-sacri¬
ficing, inspired. Gautama’s last words were : “Decay is inherent
in all component things. Work out therefore your emancipation
with diligence.” After his death his words were repeated by his
disciples, exactly as the words of Christ were repeated by St.
Peter and his comrades after the sacrifice on Calvary. It was not
till many years after his death that the teachings of Gautama
were written down in what are called the Pitakas or Baskets.
The Pitakas were written in Pali, the spoken language of the
common Indian people, which bears much the same resemblance
to Sanscrit as Italian bears to Tatin.
The teaching of Gautama has been described shortly by
The Sacred Books of the East
145
Mr. H. G. Wells in The Outline of History. The following pas¬
sage summarises the Gospel of Buddha:
The fundamental teaching of Gautama, as it is now
being made plain to us by the study of original sources, is
clear and simple and in the closest harmony with modern
ideas. It is beyond all dispute the achievement of one of
the most penetrating intelligences the world has ever known.
The Gospel of Buddha
We have what are almost certainly the authentic heads
of his discourse to the five disciples which embodies his es¬
sential doctrine. All the miseries and discontents of life he
traces to insatiable selfishness. Suffering, he teaches, is due
to the craving individuality, to the torment of greedy desire.
Until a man has overcome every sort of personal craving his
life is trouble and his end sorrow. There are three principal
forms the craving of life takes, and all are evil. The first
is the desire to gratify the senses, sensuousness. The second
is the desire for personal immortality. The third is the de¬
sire for prosperity, worldliness. All these must be overcome
— that is to say, a man must no longer be living for himself
— before life can become serene. But when they are indeed
overcome and no longer rule a man’s life, when the first
personal pronoun has vanished from his private thoughts,
then he has reached the higher wisdom. Nirvana, serenity of
soul. For Nirvana does not mean, as many people wrongly
believe, extinction, but the extinction of the futile personal
aims that necessarily make life base or pitiful or dreadful.
Now here, surely, we have the completest analysis of
the problem of the soul’s peace. Every religion that is worth
the name, every philosophy, warns us to lose ourselves in
something greater than ourselves. “Whosoever would save
his life, shall lose it”; there is exactly the same lesson. . . .
In certain other respects this primitive Buddhism dif¬
fered from any of the religions we have hitherto considered.
It was primarily a religion of conduct, not a religion of ob¬
servances and sacrifices. It had no temples, and since it had
VDL. I — 10
146
The Outline of Literature
no sacrifices it had no sacred order of priests. Nor had it
any theology. It neither asserted nor denied the reality of
the innumerable and often grotesque gods who were wor¬
shipped in India at that time. It passed them by.
The Pitakas contain the exposition of the Buddhist doctrine,
and they include ghost stories, prose aphorisms, various expo¬
sitions and regulations for the discipline of Buddha’s followers,
as well as psalms and hymns.
The following quotations will give some idea of the charac¬
ter of the Pitakas. In the second Pitaka there is a collection of
verses called “The Path of Bight.” The extract is from Rhys
David’s Buddhism:
For never in this world does hatred cease by hatred ;
Hatred ceases by love ; this is always its nature.
When by earnestness he has put an end to vanity.
And has climbed the terraced heights of wisdom,
The wise looks down upon the fools ;
Serene he looks upon the toiling crowd,
As one standing on a hill looks down
On those who stand upon the plain.
It is good to tame the mind,
DifBcult to hold in, and flighty;
Rushing where’er it listeth;
A tamed mind is the bringer of bliss.
As the bee — ^injuring not
The flower, its colour, or scent —
Flies away, taking the nectar;
So let the wise man dwell upon the earth.
As long as the sin bears no fruit,
The fool, he thinks it honey;
But when the sin ripens.
Then, indeed, he goes down into sorrow.
One may conquer a thousand thousand men in battle,
But he who conquers himself alone is the greatest victor.
The Sacred Books of the East
147
Let no man think lightly of sin, saying in his heart
“It cannot overtake me.”
As the waterpot fills by even drops of water falling,
The fool gets full of sin, ever gathering little by little.
Gautama’s democracy, his revolt against class distinctions
and the prevailing caste system, is expressed in the following:
Not by birth does one become low caste.
Not by birth does one become a Brahmin;
By his actions alone one becomes low caste.
By his actions alone one becomes a Brahmin.
How like this is to John Ball’s:
When Adam delved and Eve span.
Who was then the gentleman.''
The study of Gautama’s life and teaching do not help much
towards the understanding of modern Buddhism, which has be¬
come a tangle of varying principles and practice, grafted on to
materialistic polytheism. Some idea of the more exalted modern
Buddhism can be obtained from Rudyard Kipling’s Kim.
§ 3
THE BOOKS OF CONFUCIUS
Another great outstanding name which belongs to about
the same period as Gautama is that of Confucius. He “takes
rank in China as practically the founder of its literature, of its
system of morals, and of its religious ideal or standard.” He
was free, says one of his disciples, from four things: foregone
conclusions, arbitrary determinations, obstinacy, and egoism.
Mr. George Haven Putnam has tersely summed up the work of
Confucius :
What is known as the religion of Confucius, comprises
in substance the old-time national or popular faith freshly
148
The Outline of Literature
interpreted into the thought and language of the later gener¬
ation, and shaped into a practical system of morals as a guide
for the action of the state and for the daily life of the in¬
dividual citizen.
It is interesting to compare the different forms taken
by the earliest literary traditions of the different peoples of
antiquity. The Greek brings to us as the corner-stone of his
literature and of his beliefs, the typical epics, the Iliad and
the Odyssey; poems of action and prowess, commemorating
the great deeds of the ancestors, and describing the days
when men were heroes, and heroes were fit companions and
worthy antagonists for the gods themselves.
The imagination of the East Indian has evolved a series
of gorgeous and grotesque dreams, in which all conditions
of time and space appear to be obliterated, and in which the
universe is pictured as it might appear in the visions of the
smoker of haschisch. It is difficult to gather from these wild
fancies of the earlier Indian poets (and the earlier writers
were essentially poets) any trustworthy data concerning the
history of the past, or any practical instruction by which to
guide the life of the present. The present is but a tiny point,
between the immeasurable eeons of the past and the nirvana
of the future, and seems to have been thought hardly worthy
the attention of thinking beings.
The Egyptian literary idea has apparently been
thought out in the temple, and it is from the priests that the
people receive the record of the doings of its gods and of
the immeasurable dynasties of monarchs selected by the
gods to express their will, while it is also to the priests that
the people must look for instruction concerning the duty
of the present.
The Assyrian records read, on the other hand, as if they
were the work of royal scribes, writing under the direct
supervision of the kings themselves. The gods are described,
and their varied relations to the world below are duly set
forth. But the- emphasis of the narrative appears to be given
to the glory and the achievements of such great monarchs as
Sargon and Asshurbanipal, as if a long line of scribes, writ-
THE BEAUTIFUL MEMORIAL ARCH (“HONOURABLE PORTAL”) LEADING TO THE TOMB OF CONFUCIUS
Confucius was buried at his birthplace in the Shantung province, and the temple built to his memory is now a museum of
wondrous Chinese art.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
CONFUCIUS, THE CELEBRATED CHINESE PHILOSOPHER
^ 551 B.C.
C^fucius remains the great prophet of China. He was
statesman and poet as well as philosopher. Confucius taught
the Christian “ Golden rule,” and insisted that knowledge was
the way to virtue.
By permission of the Open Court Publishing Co,
LAO-TZE
The founder of the Chinese religion of Taoism, Lao-Tze, was
bom in 604 B.c., fifty-three years before the birth of Confucius.
He taught humility, gentleness, and economy, “the three precious
possessions.” He also taught the doctrine of the transmigration
of souls.
The Sacred Books of the East
149
ing directly for the king’s approval, had continued the
chronicles from reign to reign.
The Literary and Religious Ideals of China
The early literary and religious ideals of China took a
very different form. We find here no priestly autocracy,
controlling all intellectual activities and giving a revelation
as to the nature of the universe, the requirements of the
gods, and the obligations of men, obligations which have
never failed to include the strictest obedience to the behests
of the priests, the representatives of the gods. There are no
court chronicles, dictated under royal supervision, and de¬
voted, not to the needs of the people, but to the glorious
achievements of the monarchs. Nor is there any great epic,
commemorating the deeds of heroes and demi-gods. In place
of these we find what may be called a practical system of ap¬
plied ethics. Confucius was evidently neither a visionary
dreamer nor a poet, nor did he undertake to establish any
priestly or theological authority for his teaching. He gives
the impression of having been an exceptionally clear-headed
and capable thinker, who devoted himself, somewhat as
Socrates did a century later, to studying out the problems
affecting the life of the state and of the individual. With
Socrates, however, the chief thing appears to have been the
intellectual interest of the problem, while with Confucius the
controlling purpose was evidently the welfare of his fellow-
men. It was his aim, as he himself expressed it, through a
rewriting of the wise teachings left us by our ancestors, so as
to adapt them to the understanding of the present genera¬
tion, to guide men to wise and wholesome lives, and to pre¬
pare them for a better future. The work of Confucius
stands as the foundation stone of the literature, the morals,
and the statecraft of China.
In so far as the Chinese are followers of Confucius, they
may be said to have no religion, for religion is the recognition of
a superhuman control of human affairs, and no such recognition
was taught by the great Chinese philosopher, who was born
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The Outline of Literature
about the year 550 b.c.^ at the time when the feudal system in
China was breaking up in a turmoil of civil strife. Confucius was
an apostle of order and an intense believer in the creation of a
powerful central authority. His ideal was the Aristocratic Man
— what Carlyle would have called a hero and Nietzsche a super-
ihan — who should prove his right to power by the greatness of
his character. For some time he was the chief minister of the
Duke of Lu, endeavouring to enforce morality by means of eti¬
quette, as if, nowadays, a reformer should insist that the
first step towards the righteous life is dressing for dinner. After
a time the duke preferred dancing-girls to his philosopher-minis¬
ter, and Confucius was exiled. He spent the best years of life
wandering from state to state, teaching wherever he went, and
returning home in his old age to collect his wisdom in his books.
The wisdom of Confucius is contained in five books: The
Book of History, The Book of Changes, The Book of Poetry,
The Book of Bites, and The Annals of Spring and Autumn. To
The Book of History Confucius only contributed a preface; to
The Book of Changes he wrote several appendices; The Book of
Poetry was compiled by him from ancient sources; and certain
of his sayings have been added to The Book of Bites, which was
in existence long before his time. Confucius himself protested
that by The Annals of Spring and Autumn “men would know
him and condemn him.”
Until recent times, the Chinaman anxious to enter the public
service was expected to pass an examination in the works of
Confucius and in certain others of the Chinese classics — and in
nothing else. Some idea of the teaching of Confucius and of the
beauty of his writing may be gathered from the following trans¬
lated passages quoted from Mr. Giles’s The Sayings of Con¬
fucius:
The master said : The higher type of man makes a sense
of duty the groundwork of his character, blends with it in •
The Sacred Books of the East
151
action a sense of harmonious proportion, manifests it in a
spirit of unselfishness, and perfects it by the addition of
sincerity and truth. Then indeed is he a noble character.
The higher type of man seeks all that he wants in him¬
self; the inferior man seeks all that he wants from others.
The higher type of man is firm but not quarrelsome;
sociable, but not clannish.
The wise man does not esteem a person more highly
because of what he says, neither does he undervalue what is
said because of the person who says it.
The charm of The Book of Poetry is illustrated by the fol¬
lowing translation by Mr. Cranmer-Byng :
THE HAPPY MAN
He has perched in the valley with pines over-grown,
This fellow so stout and so merry and free ;
He sleeps and he talks and he wanders alone,
And none are so true to their pleasure as he.
He has builded his hut in the bend of the mound.
This fellow so fine with his satisfied air ;
He wakes and he sings with no neighbour around,
And whatever betide him his home will be there.
He dwells on a height amid cloudland and rain,
This fellow so grand whom the world blunders by ;
He slumbers alone, wakes, and slumbers again.
And his secrets are safe in that valley of Wei.
In China to-day hundreds of thousands of people know all
the Confucian books by heart, and even the illiterate cherish the
Confucian maxims first taught so many centuries ago.
§ 4
THE BOOK OF ZOROASTER
The Teachings of Zoroaster
Another great Eastern religious teacher was Zoroaster. It
is impossible to determine the exact age in which he lived. Some
152
The Outline of Literature
authorities place him as early as 1000 b.c.^ others contend that he
was contemporary with Buddha or Confucius. He taught that
in the beginning of things there were two spirits, one standing for
light and life, the creator of law, order, and truth; the other
standing for darkness and death, the creator of all evil. The
two spirits are engaged in eternal combat for the soul of man,
and Zoroaster foretold the ultimate triumph of the good spirit.
It is said that Zoroaster was the author of twenty books written
on twelve thousand cow-hides. Much of his teaching is said to
be contained in the Zend-Avesta, the sacred book of the Parsees.
It is impossible to determine the exact date at which the present
book was compiled, though it probably belongs to the period a.d.
250 to 600.
On the highest point of Malabar Hill, outside the city of
Bombay, there are a number of towers, 25 feet in height, on which
the Parsees leave the bodies of their dead that they may he eaten
by vultures and so may not profane the earth. The religion of the
Parsees forbids the burning or burial of the dead. The Parsees
are a small people to-day, the only followers of the religion of
Zoroaster, who, twelve hundred years ago, were driven out of
Persia by the Arabs and settled in India. Centuries ago Zoro-
asterism had its hundreds of thousands of adherents living on the
great plain bounded on the west by the Biver Tigris, the east by
the Indus, on the north by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by
the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.
One point of great interest about this book, the Zend-
Avesta, is that no other existing document is written in the same
language. The Zend-Avesta consists of five parts. The first
part is made up of a liturgy of prayers and hymns; the second
part is also a liturgy ; the third part consists of legends and pre¬
cepts; the fourth part of songs and invocations; and the fifth of
prayers. The character of the Zend-Avesta is illustrated in the
following extracts quoted from The Teachings of Zoroaster, by
Dr. S. A. Kapadia:
The Sacred Books of the East
153
With enemies fight with equity. With a friend pro¬
ceed with the approval of friends. With a malicious man
carry on no conflict, and do not molest him in any way what¬
ever. With a greedy man thou shouldst not be a partner,
and do not trust him with the leadership. With an ill-famed
man form no connection. With an ignorant man thou
shouldst not become a confederate and associate. With a
foolish man make no dispute. With a drunken man do not
walk on the road. From an ill-natured man take no loan.
... In forming a store of good works thou shouldst be
diligent, so that it may come to thy assistance among the
spirits.
Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through any
happiness of the world; for the happiness of the world is
such-like as a cloud that comes on a rainy day, which one
does not ward off by any hill. . . .
Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through much
treasure and wealth ; for in the end it is necessary for thee to
leave all. ...
Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through great
connections and race ; for in the end thy trust is on thine own
deeds.
Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through life;
for death comes upon thee at last, and the perishable part
falls to the ground.
§ 5
THE KORAN
Mohammed’s Mission
Mohammed, one of the most remarkable men in the history
of the world, was born in the year a.d. 570. After beginning
life as a shepherd’s boy, he became the servant of a rich widow,
whom he married when he was twenty-five. Like J ohn Bunyan
and all other religious mystics, Mohammed began his religious
experiences with grievous spiritual doubts and struggles. There
were Christian churches in Syria in his days, and many colonies
154
The Outline of Literature
of Jews, and Mohammed must have contrasted their religions
with the ignorant superstitions of his own people.
Dr. G. M. Grant has written a dramatic account of the
beginning of Mohammed’s mission:
He used to wander about the hills alone, brooding over
these things ; he shunned the society of men, and solitude be¬
came a passion to him. At length came the crisis. He was
spending the sacred months at Mount Hira, “a huge barren
rock, torn by cleft and hollow ravine, standing out solitary
in the full white glare of the desert sun, shadowless, flower¬
less, without well or rill.” Here, in a cave, Mohammed gave
himself up to prayer and fasting. Long months or even
years of doubt had increased his nervous excitability. He
had had, they say, cataleptic flts during his childhood, and
was evidently more delicately and flnely constituted than
those around him. These were the circumstances in which,
according to the tradition of the cave, Mohammed heard a
voice say “Cry!”
“What shall I cry?” he answered.
“Cry I in the name of thy Lord who created.
Created man from blood.
Cry I for thy Lord is the bountifullest.
Who taught the pen.
Taught man what he did not know.”
Mohammed arose trembling and went to Khadijeh, and
told her what he had heard. She believed in him, soothed his
terror, and bade him hope for the future. Yet he could not
believe in himself. W as he not mad, or possessed by a devil ?
Were these voices of a truth from God?
Doubting, wondering, hoping, he had fain put an end
to a life which had become intolerable in its changings from
the heaven of hope to the hell of despair, when again — some
time, we know not how long, after — he heard the voice,
“Thou art the messenger of God, and I am Gabriel.” Then
conviction at length seized hold upon him; he was indeed to
bring a message of good tidings to the Arabs, the message of
God through the angel Gabriel. He went back to Khadijeh,
The Sacred Books of the East
155
exhausted in mind and body. “Wrap me, wrap me,” he said;
and in that position the word came to him:
“O thou who art covered, rise up and warn!
And thy Lord magnify!
And thy garments purify!
And abomination shun!
And grant not favours to gain increase !
And thy Lord await.”
Thus it was that the first revelations came to Mo¬
hammed.
Mohammed’s Flight from Mecca to Medina
Mohammed was forty when he began to preach belief in the
one true God, insisting on the doctrine of after-death rewards
and punishments. Perseeution was Mohammed’s fate, as it has
been the fate of most religious reformers, and to save his life he
had to make a midnight flight from Meeea to Medina. This
flight — the Hegira — is regarded by Mohammedans as one of the
great events in the prophet’s life. An army of ten thousand men
was sent from Mecca against him, but Mohammed dug a treneh
and built a wall and his enemy was unable to prevail against him.
This failure marked the beginning of a series of triumphs, and
when he died at the age of sixty-two Mohammed was master of
all Arabia.
The contents of the Koran, the Mohammedan Bible, were
first colleeted about the year a.d. 635, three years after the death
of the prophet. Washington Irving tells us:
It was shortly after the vietory of Khaled over
Moseilma that Abu Bekar undertook to gather together
from written and all sources the precepts and revelations of
the Koran, whieh hitherto had existed partly in seattered
documents and partly in the memories of the disciples and
companions of the Prophet. He was greatly urged to this
undertaking by Omar, that ardent zealot for the faith. The
latter had observed with alarm the number of veteran com-
156
The Outline of Literature
panions of the Prophet who had fallen in the battle of
Akreba. “In a little while,” said he, “all the living testi¬
fiers to the faith, who bear the revelations of it in their
memories, will have passed away, and with them so many
records of the doctrines of Islam.” He urged Abu Bekar,
therefore, to collect from the surviving disciples all that they
remembered ; and to gather together from all quarters what¬
ever parts of the Koran existed in writing.
It will be seen that the Koran was compiled very much in
the same way as the New Testament, and even more, for it not
only inculcates a faith, but it is a textbook of civil law.
The unity of God is the basis of the Mohammedan faith, and
it was this doctrine that the prophet and his successors taught to
“the Arabs, who worshipped the stars; to the Persians, who
acknowledged Ormuz and Ahriman ; the Indians, who worshipped
idols; and the Turks, who had no particular worship.” At the
present time, the number of people in the world to whom the
Koran is the sacred book and Mohammed the supreme teacher is
rather larger than the number of adherents of the Roman Catho¬
lic Church. Sixty-two and a half million Mohammedans live in
the Indian Empire.
What the Koran Teaches
The Koran teaches faith in God--“There is no God but
Allah” — faith in His angels, faith in His Scriptures or Koran,
faith in His Prophets, predestination, resurrection and judgment
after death. To the Moslem, Mohammed is the instrument
“whereby the will of the creator of the world has been revealed.”
The Moslem absolutely believes in the verbal inspiration in the
Koran. To him it is an infallible guide to conduct, and he neither
questions its facts or its precepts. Hell is elaborately described
in the Koran. There are seven circles in hell. One of them is for
wicked Mohammedans, who are released after a certain period of
punishment. Another is for Jews, a third for Christians, and the
: . . . , . .
Photo: H. J. Shepstone.
A PARSES TOWER OF SILENCE, BOMBAY
The Parsees, a small people of Persian origin, are followers of Zoroaster. They are rarely found nowadays outside the city of
Bombay. The reason for the e.xistence of the Towers of Silence is found in the teachings of Zoroaster. His laws for the treatment of
dead bodies direct that as they are impure they must not be buried, or they would pollute the earth; that they must not be burnt or
they would pollute fire; neither must they be thrown into water of any kind. It is directed that they must be carried up to a lofty
tower or mountain, placed on stones or iron plates, and exposed to dogs and vultures.
"N. D.” Photo.
THE MOSQUE OF SlDl OKBA: THE MOST ANCIENT MOHAMMEDAN BUILDING IN AFRICA
It contains the shrine of the Arab conqueror whose name it bears. Okba led the Saracen armies westward through Northern
Africa to the shores of the Atlantic in a.d. 670, destroying the last vestiges of Greek and Roman civilisation in Africa.
ii'iM'U
Photo: H. J. Shepstone
v;«
bird’s-eye view of MECCA, THE RELIGIOUS CAPITAL OF ISLAM
Mecca was the birthplace of Mohammed, and the city of his followers. It lies in a narrow valley, and its great Mosque holds 30,000
worshippers.
The Sacred Books of the East
157
worst hell of all for hypocrites. The heaven of the Koran is thus
summarised by Sir Arthur Wollaston:
It is pictured as beautiful beyond the dreams of imagi¬
nation, and all that can delight the heart or enchant the
senses is there to be found — exquisite jewels and precious
stones, the tree of happiness, yielding fruits of size and taste
unknown to mortals, streams flowing, some with water, some
with milk, some with wine (which, forbidden in this life, is
permitted in the next) , albeit without any intoxicating prop¬
erties, and others with honey. But all these glories will be
eclipsed by the resplendent houris of paradise; created not
of clay, as in the case of mortal women, but of pure musk,
and clad in magniflcent garments, their charms being en¬
hanced by the enjoyment of perpetual youth. Entertained
with the ravishing songs of the Angel Israfil the inhabitants
of paradise will enjoy pleasures that surpass all human
imagination. Let it not be supposed, however, that the hap¬
piness of the blessed is to consist wholly in corporeal enjoy¬
ments; far otherwise, for all the varied pleasures of paradise
will pale into insignificance compared with the exquisite
dehght of beholding the face of the Almighty morning and
evening. The idea that women will not be admitted into
paradise is a libel upon Islam, though admittedly differences
of opinion exist as to whether or not they will pass into a
separate place of happiness. Nor is it anywhere explained
whether male companions will be assigned to them. One
comfort, however, remains to the fair sex in that on entering
paradise they are all to become young again.
The Koran teaches belief in the existence of genii as well as
of angels. The character of these genii may be gathered from the
stories of the Arabian Nights. It commands the faithful to
pray five times a day at certain definite times. It commands the
giving of alms, fasting (“the odour of the mouth of him who
fasteth is more grateful to God than that of musk”), and a pil¬
grimage to Mecca. The Koran forbids the drinking of wine.
158
The Outline of Literature
gambling, usury, and the eating of certain kinds of flesh. The
Koran allows polygamy and makes divorce easy. And it com¬
mands the faithful to proselytise, by persuasion and by the
sword.
The word Koran means “that which ought to be read.” It
is divided into a hundred and fourteen chapters, each chapter be¬
ing subdivided into verses. There are seven ancient editions of
the Koran. Two were published at Medina, one at Mecca, one
at Cufa, one at Basra, and one in Syria. The seventh is called
the common or vulgar edition. Each edition is said to contain
77,639 words and 323,015 letters. Each chapter, except the
ninth, is preflxed by the words; “In the name of the most merci¬
ful God.” The Koran is written in prose in the purest Arabic,
though Sale tells us that the sentences generally continued in a
long continued rhyme, for the sake of which the sense is often
interrupted. There is little doubt that Mohammed himself was
the actual author of the Koran. Mohammedans, however, believe
that the first transcript has been from everlasting by God’s
throne, written on a table of vast bigness called the preserved
table, in which are also recorded the divine decrees, past and
future. A copy from this table, in one volume on paper, was by
the ministry of the angel Gabriel sent down to the lowest heaven,
whence Gabriel revealed it to Mohammed by parcels, some at
Mecca and some at Medina, at different times during the space of
twenty-three years.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Koran
was translated into Latin and French, and one of the French
versions was translated into English in 1649. George Sale’s
famous English translation was first published in the year 1734.
The following quotations show the Koran’s teaching con¬
cerning the nature of God:
To God belongeth the east and the west; therefore,
whithersoever ye turn yourselves to pray, there is the face
The Sacred Books of the East
159
of God; for God is omnipresent and omniscient. To Him
belongeth whatever is in heaven and on earth ; all is possessed
hy Him, the Creator of heaven and earth; and when He
decreeth a thing He only saith unto it, Be, and it is.
O true believers, beg assistance with patience and
prayer, for God is with the patient.
God is bounteous and wise. He giveth wisdom unto
whom He pleaseth ; and he unto whom wisdom is given, hath
received much good; but none will consider, except the wise
of heart. And whatever alms ye shall give, or whatever vow
ye shall vow, verily God knoweth it; but the ungodly shall
have none to help them. If ye make your alms to appear,
it is well; but if ye conceal them, and give them unto the
poor, this will be better for you, and will atone for your
sins: and God is well informed of that which ye do.
Much of the Koran may be traced to the Bible, and although
the Mohammedan has fought fiercely against the Christian the
Koran teaches that Jesus Christ, with Abraham and Moses,
should be held in the highest reverence as an inspired prophet.
§ 6
THE TALMUD
Other Sacred Books are the Gramih of the Sikhs^ the Too
Teh King of the Chinese philosopher Lao-tze, who preached the
Sermon on the Mount six centuries before Christ, and the
Talmud.
The importance of the Talmud lies in the fact that it is the
authoritative guide of the great mass of the Jewish people living
to-day in the various cities of the Western world. Professor Po-
lano says: “The Talmud is a collection of early Biblical discus¬
sions, with the comments of generations of teachers who devoted
their lives to the study of the scriptures. It is an encyclopedia
of law, civil and penal, human and divine.- It is more.
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however, than a mere book of laws. It records the thoughts,
rather than the events, of a thousand years of the national life of
the Jewish People; all their oral traditions, carefully gathered
and preserved with a love devout in its trust and simplicity.
To the devout Jew there is an intimate connection between
the ethical and ceremonial sides of religion, and this fact gives
the Talmud its interest and importance.
The Talmud took over three hundred years to compile. The
work was begun at the beginning of the fourth century A.i)., and
not finished until the end of the sixth. The Tahnud is divided
into two parts. The first part is called the Mishna and is a col¬
lection of legal decisions based on the laws of the Old Testament.
The second part of the Talmud is called the Gemara. The
Mishna was written in what Mr. Stanley Cook calls “a late liter¬
ary form of Hebrew.” The Gemara was written in Aramaic, the
language in which a great part of our New Testament was
originally written.
The following is a typical Talmudic parable :
It happened that the mayor of a city once sent his ser¬
vant to the market to purchase some fish. When he reached
the place of sale he found that all the fish save one had been
sold, and this one a Jewish tailor was about purchasing.
Said the mayor’s servant, “I will give one gold piece for it”;
said the tailor, ‘T will give two.” The mayor’s messenger
then expressed his willingness to pay three gold pieces for it,
but the tailor claimed the fish, and said he would not lose it
though he should be obliged to pay ten gold pieces for it.
The mayor’s servant then returned home, and in anger re¬
lated the circumstance to his master. The mayor sent for
his subject, and when the latter appeared before him asked:
“What is thy occupation?”
“A tailor, sir,” replied the man.
“Then how canst thou afford to pay so great a price for
a fish, and how dare degrade my dignity by offering for it
a larger sum than that offered by my servant?”
The Sacred Books of the East
161
“I fast to-morrow,” replied the tailor, “and I wished
the fish to eat to-day, that I might have strength to do so.
I would not have lost it even for ten pieces of gold.”
“What is to-morrow more than any other day?” asked
the mayor.
“Why art thou more than any other man?” returned
the other.
“Because the king hath appointed me to this office.”
“Well,” replied the tailor, “the King of kings hath ap¬
pointed this day to be holier than all other days, for on this
day we hope that God will pardon our transgressions.”
“If this be the case thou wert right,” answered the
mayor, and the Israelite departed in peace.
Thus, if a person’s intention is to obey God, nothing
can hinder its accomplishment. On this day God commanded
His children to fast, but they must strengthen their bodies
to obey Him by eating the day before. It is a person’s duty
to sanctify himself, bodily and spiritually, for the approach
of this great day. He should be ready to enter at any mo¬
ment into the Fearful Presence with repentance and good
deeds as his companions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Prof. D. S. Margoliouth: Mohammedanism.
Mrs. Rhys Davids : Buddhism.
Sir R. K. Douglas: Confucianism and Taoism.
Dr. L. D. Barnett: Hinduism.
There is a very useful collection of volumes, “The Wisdom of the East”
Series, among which may be particularly mentioned: Buddha’s The Way of
Virtue, a Translation of the Dhammapada, by W. D. C. Wagiswara and K. J.
Saunders; Brahm-Knowledge: an Outline of the Philosophy of the Vedanta,
by L. D. Barnett; The Sayings of Confucius, with notes by Lionel Giles;
Taoist Teachings, from the Book of Lieh Tzu, translated from the Chinese by
Lionel Giles; The Teachings of Zoroaster and The Philosophy of the Parsi
Religion, by S. A. Kapadia.
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Prof. A. V, William Jackson; Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iram.
“The Sacred Books of the East,” translations by various scholars, edited
by the late Max Miiller is an important series.
There are also English translations of the Koran and the Talmud.
VI
GREEK MYTH AND THE POETS
163
GREEK MYTH AND THE POETS
IN an earlier chapter something has been said about the place
of the Myth in the ancestry of Literature. The nature of
myths was explained. Why (it may he asked) return to
the subject? It is necessary to return to it because mythology,
like a parent’s blood, has passed into all the veins of Literature,
of which it is still one of the sweetest and most persisting cur¬
rents. What the alphabet is to words, and what words are to
vocal or written expression of thought — such is mythology to
poetry.
§ 1
Words and Phrases
We are more Greek than we know. Thousands of our most
subtle and beautiful words are Greek. Thus no word of a high
order is heard more frequently to-day than “psychological” ; yet
unless, at the back of the mind, one remembers that the word is
compounded of the Greek psyche (the soul) and logikos (apper¬
taining to speaking or reasoning), a true understanding of the
word, which will avail one in all its uses and appearances, is not
possible; any more than the word “philosophy” can he fully
sensed unless one knows that it is simply the Greek philo (I love)
joined to sophia (wisdom) : hence, in its essence, the love of wis¬
dom. Even the telephone is less wonderful to a man to whom it
does not recall tele (far off) and phone (sound). This is not to
tax the ordinary man with ignorance of Greek; if he does not
know these things it is because the curricula of his schooldays did
not include a simple and short study of Greek roots.
165
166
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You read a leading article which discusses the reform of
some system, and it demands the cleansing of the Augean stable.
The phrase may have become so familiar in like connections that
you vaguely understand that it refers to a summary turn-out of
bad methods or corrupt officials; but its full significance is lost
if one does not know that what is now a common phrase is an
allusion to the fifth Labour of Hercules, who, at the instigation
of Juno, was compelled to undertake twelve colossal tasks, of
which the fifth was to clean out the stables, or byres, of Augeas,
king of Elis, where three thousand oxen had been untended for
thirty years.
So deeply have these names and stories of the dawn of cul¬
ture infused themselves in our speech that even the least educated
refer to them unknowingly. When the two weary Bath chairmen
brought Mrs. Dowler from a party at three o’clock in the morn¬
ing, they were unable to make anyone in Mr. Dowler’s and Mr.
Pickwick’s lodgings hear their prolonged knockings. “ ‘Servants
in the arms o’ Porpus, I think,” said the short chairman, warming
his hands at the attendant link-boy’s torch.” This is true to life.
The illiterate old chairman did not know that he was expressing
his impatience by a perverted allusion to Morpheus the bringer
of dreams, the son and servant of Somnus, the deity who presided
over Sleep. Yet he referred to Morpheus as directly (and, in¬
deed, as correctly) as does Milton in “H Penseroso,” where he
compares the “vain deluding Joys” of life to
. . . the gay motes that people the sun-beams,
Or likest hovering dreams.
The fickle pensioners of Morpheus’ train.
§ 2
THE GREAT GOD PAN
Mercury’s Son
In recent years the name of no Greek deity has been more
on the lips than Pan. The beautiful statue of Peter Pan in
By permission of the Fine Art Society, Lid.
“HERCULES WRESTLING WITH DEATH FOR THE BODY OF ALCESTIS,” BY LORD LEIGHTON
Admetus, King of Thessaly, loved Alcestis, daughter of Pelias. After his marriage he fell ill, but the Fates, v;ho had decreed his
death, were prevailed upon by Apollo to spare his life on condition that someone would die in his stead. Only his wife, Alcestis, would
make the sacrifice. She sickened in secret while Admetus recovered. But Hercules, arriving at the fatal hour, seized Death, and forced
him to release his prey. Hence Milton’slines in his “Sonnet on his Deceased Wife’’:
“ Methought I saw my late-espoused saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave.
Whom Jove’s great son to her glad husband gave.
Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint.”
By permission of the Manchester Corporation.
HYLAS AND THE NYMPHS
From the painting by J. W. Waterhouse, in the Manchester Art Gallery.
One of the many beautiful stories associated with Nymphs. Hylas, a beautiful youth, was beloved by Hercules, whom he accom¬
panied, with Jason and his Argonauts, in the quest of the Golden Fleece. Sent to fill a pitcher from a fountain in Mysia, he fascinated
the Nymphs, who would not part with him, and he sank in the waters which were their home. Hercules mourned his loss so
greatly that he abandoned the Argonauts to seek Hylas, and the Argo sailed without him. But Hylas was not seen again.
THE MUSE EUTERPE
(Vatican.)
Muse of Lyric Poetry.
CLIO
(Vatican.)
Muse of History.
POLHYMNIA
(Vatican.)
Muse of Sacred Poetry.
Photos: Rischgitz Collection.
TtfetCOREJI
MELPOMENE TERPSICHORE THALIA
(Vatican.) (Vatican.) (Vatican.)
Muse of Tragedy. Muse of Choral Song and Dance. Muse of Comedy and Idyllic Poetry.
The Nine Muses, of whom six are represented here, were goddesses who presided over the liberal arts. Daughters of Jupiter and
Mnemosyne (Memory) , they dwelt on the summits of Parnassus, Pindus, or Helicon, whose streams and springs were sacred to them as
were also the palm-tree and the laurel. Apollo was their patron and leader. Poets in all ages have invoked the aid of the Muses. The
three not here represented are Calliope, who presided over epic poetry, Erato (love poetry) , and Urania (astronomy).
Greek Myth and the Poets
167
Kensington Gardens is a tribute not only to Sir James Barrie’s
exquisite creation, but to that god of the woods and fields who
inspired it. Pan, the son of Mercury and a wood-nymph, has a
great place in poetry. His name signifies “all”; hence a temple
dedicated to all the gods was called a Pantheon, and a church in
which honour is rendered to the famous dead, such as Westmin¬
ster Abbey, is often called by the same name. Pan himself was
a wild and wandering creature of the woods and mountains.
He was goat-footed and horned, flat-nosed and tailed, yet
he played wild sweet tunes on his pipes ; and thus he figures as a
satyr who pursues the Nymphs and Dryads with unholy love —
and also as the spirit of the joy of living the life of nature. Mil-
ton writes of
Universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance.
Led on the eternal Spring.
But Pan was also the dread of all who wandered through a
trackless forest or near a gloomy cave. Sudden and unreasonable
fear would seize them at the thought of Pan’s presence. Hence
our word “panic.” It is a singular thought that a panic on the
Stock Exchange recalls the eerie terrors of darkness felt by
Arcadian peasants in ages remoter than any of which history
tells.
§ 3
CUPID AND PSYCHE
The allusions to Greek myths, heard on the common tongue,
are endless. Cupid’s name is as familiar to-day as when the in¬
fant god of love was known to all men as the winged son of Venus
by Jupiter, though other fathers — Mars and Mercury — are
named. Cupid’s name is also Eros; from the one we have our
word “cupidity,” and from the other “erotic.” The story of the
estrangement and reconciliation of Cupid and Psyche, one of
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the most beautiful of the myths, has been referred to in an earlier
chapter. It may be regarded as a primitive allegory of the con¬
ditions under which men can find immortality.
Psyche’s name signifies “a butterfiy” — the emblem of the
soul’s life breaking from mortal bonds. Keats’s beautiful “Ode
to Psyche” will be recalled. It concludes thus:
Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
In some untrodden region of my mind.
Where branched thoughts, new-grown with pleasant pain,
Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind :
Far, far around shall those dark-cluster’d trees
Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep;
And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees.
The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull’d to sleep;
And in the midst of this wide quietness
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreath’s trellis of a working brain.
With birds, and bells, and stars without a name;
With all the gardener’s fancy e’er could feign.
Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same;
And there shall be for thee all soft delight
That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night.
To let the warm Love in!
The literature of Cupid is the literature of love. Shakespeare
brings him into his plays no fewer than fifty-two times, never
more beautifully than in The Midsummer Nighfs Dream.
Oberon speaks to Titania:
That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm’d: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned by the west.
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts ; ;;
But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft
ATLAS
National Museum, Naples.
Shown the Medusa’s head by Perseus, the Titan, Atlas,
suffered the fate of being turned into a mountain of stone.
Hence, Mount Atlas, named after him, was supposed to bear
the weight of heaven, but the Titan was also imagined as
supporting the earth on his shoulders.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Photo: W. A. Mansell Co.
DEATH OF PROCRIS, BY PIERO D1 COSIMO
National Gallery, London.
Cephalus, a great hunter, was wont in the heat of the day to lie in the shade and call upon Aura, "sweet goddess of the breeze,”
to cool his limbs. His young wife, Procris, was misled into believing that he called upon a rival maiden, and stole to the spot to listen.
He thought he heard a sound in a near thicket and, thinking it came from an animal, threw his javelin, which had been the gift of
Procris. Too late, he discovered that he had slain his beloved. The story is alluded to in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:
Pyramus: "Not Cephalus to Procris was so true.”
Thisbe: "As Cephalus to Procris, I to you.”
By permission of the Fine Art Society, Ltd.
“at.alanta’s race,” by sir E. J. POYNTER
Atalanta, daughter of Schceneus, King of Scyros, was born in Arcadia, and she had so many suitors that, to settle their claims, she
proposed a race in which the lover who arrived at the goal before her should win her hand, but death was to be the penalty of all
who tried and failed. Many paid it, but Hippomenes, a beautiful youth, was provided by Venus with three golden apples, which he
dropped one by one as he ran. Atalanta, stooping to pick them up, was outrun and became his prize. An oracle, however, had pre¬
dicted misfortune to Atalanta if she ever married, and soon afterwards Venus, withdrawing her favour, changed the couple into a lion
and lioness.
Greek Myth and the Poets
169
Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell :
It fell upon a little western flower.
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound.
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
No better example could be found of the transfusion of an
ancient story into fine poetry thousands of years after that story
was a wisp of fable in the morning of time.
The reason why these and countless other myths have sur¬
vived till our day, aiding and beautifying expression, is not merely
that poets and painters and scholars have loved them; it is pri¬
marily their own everlastingness. They typify human experi¬
ences which do not, and cannot, change in essentials; there is no
need to go on inventing symbols which, being new, would have
little of the beauty of these childlike fancies, and none of their
immemorial suggestion. Myth binds the ages together. It may
be described as the ozone of literature and art.
It is curious to note how instinctively we resort to fable when
new things have to be named or new subjects discussed. In re¬
cent years, for example, man has acquired the power of mechani¬
cal flight. But his efforts to solve the problem have been beset
with peril and tragedy. Hence we now constantly hear allusions
to the story of Icarus, just as in an earlier period within our
own memory similar allusions to Phaeton were frequent in books
and newspapers.
§ 4
THE ROAD TO RUIN
The Chariot of the Sun
Phaeton’s story has a tragic splendour, for its background
is the universe itself. He was the son of Apollo (or Phoebus) , the
god of the Sun, and the nymph Clymene. He has represented
170
The Outline of Literature
the rash charioteer, or driver, in all ages. And so, when Shake¬
speare wishes to express Juliet’s impatience for the dusk in which
she hopes that Romeo will come to her, he makes her exclaim:
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Toward Phoebus’ lodging: such a waggoner
As Phaethon would whip you to the west.
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
But, in the story. Phaeton brought much more than dark¬
ness on the earth. He begged Apollo to give him proof of his
fatherly trust, and Apollo swore by Styx that he would deny
him none that he asked. But he repented of his promise when
Phaeton begged to be allowed to drive the chariot of the Sun for
a single day. “None but myself,” he said, “may drive the flaming
car of day, not even Jupiter, whose terrible right arm hurls the
thunderbolts.” He warned his son of the cosmic perils of the
journey.
The first part of the way is steep . . . the middle is high up
in the heavens, whence I myself can scarcely, without alarm,
look down and behold the earth I see stretched beneath me.
. . . Add to all this, the heaven is all the time turning round
and carrying the stars with it. I have to be perpetually on
my guard lest that movement, which sweeps everything else
along, should hurry me also away. Suppose I lend you
the chariot, what will you do ? . . . The road is through the
midst of frightful monsters. You pass by the horns of the
Bull, in front of the Archer, and near the Lion’s jaws, and
where the Scorpion stretches its arms in one direction and
the Crab in another. Nor will you find it easy to guide
these horses, with their breasts full of fire which they breathe
forth from their mouths and nostrils.
The foolhardy Phaeton held his father to his pledge, and was soon
seated in the glorious chariot which Vulcan had made with axle
and wheels of gold, spokes of silver, and a seat gemmed with dia¬
monds and chrysolite. He took the reins and started on his
Greek Myth and the Poets
171
journey over the earth. He was soon in difficulties. The steeds
felt a lighter hand, and rushed headlong from the road. Disaster
on disaster followed. The Great and Little Bear were scorched.
Other constellations withered. When he neared the earth there
was terror below and above. Phaeton had dropped the reins, and
was on his knees praying to his father to help. But his prayer
was lost in the great cry of dismay from the nations. Forests
were aflame, mountains melted, the sea dried up, and mountains
beneath it rose into islands. The earth was cracking: cities went
up in smoke and fell in ashes. The Nile fled into the desert,
where for the greater part of the year it remains to-day. The
people of Ethiopia turned black. Neptune himself could not
raise his head above the waves he ruled. Earth prayed in her
agony to Jupiter to stay the conflagration that would reduce all
her life to cinders.
Jupiter heard, and calling all the gods to witness the salva¬
tion he intended, hurled a lightning-bolt at the mad charioteer.
He was unseated and fell headlong into the River Eridanus,
whose nymphs buried him by its waters and raised a tomb to the
rash demigod. His sisters mourned him so helplessly and long
that Jupiter, in pity, changed them into poplars whose leaves
dripped tears of amber on the fatal stream. His friend, Cygnus,
wasted away, and him the gods transformed into a swan which
for ever haunted the place where Phaeton disappeared. Thus
the primitive mind of man, so weak to explain, so quick to
imagine, accounted for desert and drouth and the parched places
of the world.
Briefer, but even more applicable now, is the story of Icarus,
the son of Daedalus, the Athenian inventor, who had so offended
King Minos of Crete that to save himself and his son he made
wings for both so that they could fly to safety. Daedalus was
skilful, and landed at Cumae, where he built a temple to Apollo.
But Icarus flew so near the sun that the wax by which his wings
were fastened melted and he fell into a part of the ^gean Sea,
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The Outline of Literature
which was thenceforth named Icarian. Thus is it that in the
twentieth century a.d. the end of Phaeton warns all drivers and
that of Icarus all aviators, while both condemn a too soaring
ambition such as any man may indulge to his hurt.
§5
STORIES OF THE STARS
The permanence of the Greek myths is secured not only by
their part in everyday speech and in literature, but by the fact
that a great many of them are recorded in the sky above us, that
is to say, in the changeless names of planets, stars, and constel¬
lations. God asked Job out of the whirlwind:
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades?
Or loose the bands of Orion?
On any starlight night you may see these constellations, the one
“like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid,” the other
majestic, and, in the spring, “sloping slowly to the west.” These
are closely related in a myth. The Pleiads were daughters of
Atlas, one of the thirteen Titans named by Hesiod, who in their
assault on Olympus were cast by Jupiter into the most abysmal
pit of Hades — Tartarus. The Pleiads were pursued by the
giant, Orion, as they still are, in seeming, in the night-sky of
England. In answer to their prayer for succour Jupiter first
turned them into pigeons, then into stars. Of these only six can
be seen with the eye, and the story is that the seventh, Electra,
quitted her place that she might not see the ruin of Troy, which
her son, by Jupiter himself, had founded. Hence Byron’s line,
“Like the lost Pleiad, seen no more below.” Milton, recalling the
passage in J ob, and describing the creation of the firmament and
all the heavenly bodies, tells how —
The grey
Dawn and the Pleiades before Him danced.
Shedding sweet influence.
Photo: Braun,
“ ICARUS,” BY LORD LEIGHTON
The young son of Daedalus, an Athenian sculptor and inventor, Icarus was taught by his father to fly by means of wings
fastened by wax to his shoulders. The myth tells how he flew too near the sun and, the wax melting, befell into the sea and
was drowned.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“castor and POLLUX CARRYING OFF TALAIRA AND PHCEBE, DAUGHTERS OF LEUCIPPUS,’’ BY RUBENS
Munich.
Castor and Pollux, who give their names to one of the best-known constellations of stars, were the twin sons of Jupiter by Leda.
They accompanied Jason in his quest of the Golden Fleece. The story here illustrated is that of their violent carrying-off of two
daughters of Leucippus whose marriages they had been invited to attend. In Macaulay’s fine lay, "The Battle of Lake Regillus,’’
Castor and Pollux figure as " The Great Twin Brethren,” who fought for Rome.
Greek Myth and the Poets
173
Orion, the belted hunter, who still threatens the daughters of
Atlas, was a son of Neptune. The great goddess Diana (or
Artemis) learned to love Orion while he joined her in the chase.
She is said to have shot him with an arrow, when his head, just
appearing above the sea, was guilefully pointed out to her by
Apollo as a target on which to test her skill! When she knew
what she had done, she sorrowfully set him in the skies.
Perseus and Andromeda
It often happens that a sequence of stories is recalled by
constellations that are near to each other in the heavens. Every¬
one can pick out the Cassiopea group, in form like an irregular
capital W. Cassiopea was the wife of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia.
She imprudently proclaimed that she was more beautiful than
any of the fifty sea-nymphs, the Nereides, who in their wrath
begged Neptune to avenge them. The sea-god sent a terrible
monster to ravage the coast, whereupon the Ethiopians sought
help from the oracle of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan desert,
and were told that the gods would be appeased if Cepheus ex¬
posed his daughter, Andromeda, to the monster. Heart-broken
by this demand, Cepheus at last allowed his beloved child to be
chained to a rock washed by the sea. Here she was found by
Perseus, who, in his winged wanderings, had already slain the
terrible Medusa, or Gorgon, on whose serpent locks none could
look without turning into stone. He arrived just as the monster
was clearing the waves to devour his lovely prey, and, flying
down on its back, plunged his sword between its scales and thus
destroyed the destroyer. Another version is that he showed the
Gorgon’s head to the monster, which changed slowly into a rock
and, as such, remained for ever to mark the scene. Perseus mar¬
ried Andromeda, and the constellations that bear their names
now repeat the story — as do those of Cepheus and Cassiopea.
Many minor deities or heroes or persecuted nymphs were thus
removed from earth to sky.
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The story of Ariadne is different. Deserted by Theseus on
an island which was the haunt of Bacchus, she was found there
by the wine-god as he was returning with all his train from a
hunt. The story has been told best by Catullus in poetry, and
by Titian in his masterpiece, “Bacchus and Ariadne,” in the
National Gallery.
Bounding along is blooming Bacchus seen,
With all his heart aflame with love of thee,
Ariadne ! and behind him, see.
Where Satyrs and Sileni whirl along.
With frenzy fired, a fierce tumultuous throng.
These lines of Catullus (translated by Sir Theodore Martin)
may well have inspired Titian, whose picture answers to them
perfectly. Ariadne became the grateful wife of Bacchus, who
gave her a crown of seven stars which, after her death, he threw
into the sky to form a constellation.
§ 6
ECHO AND NARCISSUS
Many of these flowers of myth are perpetuated by flower-
names, none more beautifully than the myth of Echo and Nar¬
cissus. Echo, the beautiful Oread (nymph of the mountains)
annoyed Diana by her ceaseless chatter.
Diana pronounced on her this sentence of punishment: “You
shall forfeit the use of that tongue with which you have cheated
me, except for that one purpose you are so fond of — reply. You
shall still have the last word, but no power to speak first.” This
limitation of her speech greatly troubled her when she wished to
attract the love of the beautiful youth Narcissus, who, being a
confirmed bachelor, repelled her advances as he had those of
many other nymphs. Echo, in her shame and chagrin, sought
the rocks and mountains, where her form wasted away until only
her voice remained. And by that alone we know her still. But
‘•‘the return of PERSEPHONE”
FROM THE PAINTING BY LORD LEIGHTON, IN THE LEEDS ART GALLERY
The greatest event of the natural year, as the ancients conceived it, -was the yearly return of Persephone (Proserpine) from the
Infernal Regions to her mother, Ceres, from whom she had been carried away by Pluto to be his queen in the realms of Death. Her
guide from the lower to the upper world is the radiant and gallant Mercury.
Greek Myth and the Poets
175
she was soon avenged. Refusing to love any maiden, Narcissus
fell in love with his own image in a pool. Unable to embrace it,
he pined and died of grief. The repentant nymphs would have
given him burial, but when they looked for his young body they
found only the flower which bears his name. The story has been
touched on by many poets — ^by Milton in “Comus,” by Chaucer,
Spenser, and Goldsmith; and by Cowper in his epigram “On an
Ugly Fellow”:
Beware, my friend, of crystal brook
Or fountain, lest that hideous hook,
Thy nose, thou chance to see;
Narcissus’ fate would then be thine.
And self-detested thou would’st pine,
As, self-enamoured, he.
It is clear, then, that the old Greek myths are no esoteric
study. So far from being “highbrow” (detestable word!), they
are elemental to our language and literature. Men of distin¬
guished birth or origin are prone to assert themselves, and it
should not be forgotten that a word or a phrase is equally en¬
hanced by length of history and storage of suggestion. One
might refer to hundreds in which a Greek myth is enclosed: such
as “Scylla and Charybdis,” “rich as Croesus,” “Cerberus,” “vul¬
canite,” “amazons,” the “heel of Achilles,” the “Daily Argus,”
the “lethal chamber,” “sibyl,” “nemesis,” “Europe,” “Titanic,”
“mentor,” “stentorphone,” “Nestor,” “Pandora’s box,” “Champs
Elysees,” “iEolian Hall,” “gordian knot,” and many more; but
space forbids. For any broad understanding of Greek Myth¬
ology the reader must be referred to the Bibliography appended
to this chapter. In several of the books named he will learn the
lie of the enchanted land.
§ 7
IN THE BEGINNING
Our Bible opens with the simple and sublime statement, “In
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Greek
176
The Outline of Literature
myth is much more confused, but it is as deeply concerned with
the beginning of all things, and with the answer to man’s eternal
question, “Whence?” The most widely accepted story was that
of Hesiod, who believed that some great Power impressed itself
on Chaos and out of nothing brought forth all things. The first
ministers of this Power were Uranus, the most ancient of all the
gods, and Geea, or Ge, from whose name, as the name of the earth,
we derive our words geology, geography, geometrical, and so
forth. From this marriage between Heaven and Earth came the
portentous progeny of the Titans, who typified the most tre¬
mendous forces of Nature, and the three one-eyed Cyclopes, who
were fabled to have become the servants of Vulcan and the
makers, afterwards, of Jove’s thunderbolts. But the most
formidable of all the sons of Uranus was Cronus (Time), other¬
wise Saturn, who, by his sister Rhea, became the father of Zeus
(Jupiter), Aides (Pluto), Poseidon (Neptune), and of three
daughters, Vesta, Demeter (Ceres), and Hera (Juno).
Uranus feared his offspring and plunged those he feared
most into Tartarus. But Saturn rebelled, and after slaying his
father with an iron sickle reigned in his stead over heaven and
earth. He, in turn, also feared his children, and is fabled to have
swallowed each as it was born. This may symbolise the truth that
Time swallows all things, or it may have an even deeper meaning.
The Birth of Jupiter
The story goes that when Rhea had borne her sixth and last
child, Jupiter, or Zeus, she saved him by the ruse of wrapping a
baby-shaped stone in baby-clothes, which Saturn unthinkingly
swallowed.
Meanwhile, Jupiter was hidden in a cave of Mount Ida,
where he was suckled by the goat Amalthea and guarded by
tenderly vigilant Nymphs. When he had grown adult, he learned
of his mother’s and his own wrongs and, by means which have no
relation to physiology, compelled his father to disgorge his
i^hoto: Rischgiiz Collection.
“ PERSEUS,” BY CANOVA
The Vatican.
Perseus is seen holding the head of the Gorgon Medusa, whose hair had
been changed by Minerva into hissing snakes, and whose figure had
become that of a monster whose frightful aspect turned all beholders into
stone. He was provided by Minerva with her shield, in which, as in a
mirror, he could see Medusa’s reflection without hurt.
Photo: Rischgiii Collection.
JUPITER
The Vatican.
An ideal representation of Jupiter, to whom Greek and
Roman sculptors gave a countenance full of majesty.
Jove said, and nodded with his shadowy brows;
Waved on th’ immortal head th’ ambrosial locks, —
And all Olympus trembled at his nod.
Homer {irans. by the Earl oj Derby).
r.sfs
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
Echo, the mountain nymph, became enamoured of the beautiful youth Narcissus, son of the river-god Cephissus, Her inability to
do more than echo his words, and his unwillingness to quit a single life, led to tragedy for both.
Photo: Rischgilz Collection.
ACTION DEVOURED BY HIS DOGS
The British Museum.
One of the myths associated with the chaste Diana. She had been seen
bathing by Action, the famous hunter. In her anger at being espied she
transformed him into a stag (see the horns growing out of his head), where¬
upon he was torn in pieces by his own dogs.
Greek Myth and the Poets
177
brothers and sisters. Together they defeated Saturn, whose
throne Jupiter seized. He divided his universal kingdom with
his two brothers, Neptune, who was given the Ocean, and Pluto
who was monarch of the dead. Jupiter remained supreme in
heaven and on earth. He took his beautiful sister, Juno (the
Greeks called her Hera) to wife, by whom, and by others, he
begat many of the greater gods and goddesses.
But, first, Jupiter had to fight for his throne on Mount
Olympus, which was assailed by the Titans, who, in their cosmic
fury, piled Mount Pelion on Mount Ossa to effect their purpose.
In his magnificent unfinished poem “Hyperion,” Keats makes
this Titan the leader in this assault on heaven.
Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall?
Am I to leave this haven of my rest.
This cradle of my glory, this soft clime,
This calm luxuriance of blissful light.
These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes.
Of all my lucent empire?
Fall! — No, by Tellus and her briny robes!
I will advance a terrible right arm
Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,
And bid old Saturn take his throne again.
This stupendous war for the control of all things is described
by Hesiod in terms which make the brain reel — though whether,
in the advance of destructive science, it will do so much longer is
a solemn question.
Vast Olympus reel’d throughout,
Down to its rooted base, beneath the rush
Of those immortals : the vast chasm of hell
Was shaken with the trembling . . .
No longer then did Jove
Curb down his force ; but sudden in his soul
There grew dilated strength, and it was fill’d
With his omnipotence ; his whole of might
Brake from him, and the godhead rush’d abroad . . .
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The Outline of Literature
Thrown from his nervous grasp the lightnings flew
Reiterated, swift ; the whirling flash
Cast sacred splendour, and the thunderbolt
Fell.
And the Titans fell. They were enchained in Tartarus, “so far
beneath this earth as earth is distant from the sky.”
§ 8
THE OLYMPIANS
Jove now reigned secure and the great Olympian household
was formed. Its chief members were :
The Great Deities
Jupiter (or Zeus), the Thunderer, the supreme god, whose
altars on earth surpassed all others. He is represented as
throned, with a thunderbolt in his hand, and wearing a breast¬
plate whose name, “£egis,” is an English word to-day. His em¬
blem, the eagle, was always represented in his statues. Hence,
in Cymbeline the soothsayer says :
Last night the very gods show’d me a vision:
• •••••
I saw Jove’s bird, the Roman eagle, wing’d
From the spungy south to this part of the west.
There 'vanish’d in the sunbeams: which portends,
Unless my sins abuse my divination.
Success to the Roman host.
Juno (or Hera), his wife, who bore Mars (or Ares), Vul¬
can (or Haephestos), and Hebe. She was queen of heaven.
Among her emblems were the peacock and the cuckoo. She dis¬
trusted her husband, and loved Greece.
Mars, the god of war.
Vulcan (or Haephestos), the god of fire, and the armourer
of the gods.
Hebe, the blooming daughter of J upiter and Juno, who was
APOLLO BELVEDERE
The Vatican.
In this famous statue, by an unknown Roman sculptor, the Sun God
is seen in the act of loosing the arrow with which he is said to have de¬
stroyed the monster. Python.
Photo: Rischgilz Collection,
Photo; Rischgilz Collection.
VENUS DE MILO
The Louvre, Paris.
This conception of Venus, now in the Louvre, is
attributed to a sculptor of the third century B.c.
All the grace, joyousness, and dignity attributed to
the goddess are expressed in this exquisite statue.
There has been more discussion than agreement
concerning the manner in which the lost arms were
employed.
Greek Myth and the Poets
179
the cupbearer to the gods in the Olympian halls and was so
beautiful that she was regarded, also, as the goddess of youth.
Thus it is that her name is often lightly used to-day as a synonym
for “barmaid”; but thus, also, is it one of the names with which
poets gem their most beautiful lines. What does Keats say?
Let, then, winged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to her mind . . .
With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe’s, when her zone
Slipt its golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet.
While she held the goblet sweet,
And J ove grew languid.
Apollo (or Phoebus), the god of the Sun, and patron of
music and poetry, of whom Shelley sings:
I am the eye with which the Universe
Beholds itself and knows itself divine;
All harmony of instrument or verse.
All prophecy, all medicine are mine,
All light of art or nature ; to my song.
Victory and praise in their own right belong.
The glorious statue of Apollo Belvedere, in the Vatican,
represents him shooting his arrow at the terrible serpent Python,
which he slew. Byron describes his pose in “Childe Harold”:
The lord of the unerring bow.
The god of life, and poetry, and light,
The Sun, in human limbs arrayed, and brow
All radiant from his triumph in the fight.
The shaft has just been shot ; the arrow bright
With an immortal’s vengeance; in his eye
And nostril, beautiful disdain, and might.
And majesty flash their full lightnings by,
Developing in that one glance the Deity.
Diana (or Artemis), the goddess of hunting, daughter of
Latona, by Jupiter, and twin sister of Apollo — therefore asso-
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The Outline of Literature
dated with the moon. She is often identified with Silene. Al¬
though she was the patroness of Chastity, she descended to woo
Endymion, the youthful shepherd, on Mount Latmos, whose
name gives the title to Keats’s earliest long poem and to the last
of Disraeli’s novels. Few names are more frequent in poetry
than those of Diana and Endymion.
Venus (or Aphrodite), goddess of love and beauty,
daughter of Jupiter and Dione, but more beautifully fabled to
have risen from the foam of the sea. Her name and attributes
have passed into all literature.
Mercury (or Hermes), the young and graceful messenger
of the gods, was the son of Jupiter and Maia, the most beautiful
of the seven Pleiades. The name Hermes is interpreted as the
“hastener.” One of Mercury’s chief tasks was to conduct the
souls of the dead to the banks of the dreadful river Styx, which
flowed nine times round Hades. As a swift messenger he wore a
petasus, a winged hat, and bore in his hand the caduceus, a wand
of gold twined with serpents and also winged. He was the god
of eloquence, and the patron of commerce, even of gambling and
thieving, and of all occupations which required craft or cunning.
He is said to have made the first lyre out of a tortoise-shell, and
to have presented it to Apollo in exchange for the caduceus. His
manly beauty is referred to in Hamlet’s impassioned speech to
his mother as he bade her look at his father’s portrait :
A station like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill.
Vesta (or Hestia), daughter of Cronus and Rhea, was the
goddess of all public and private hearths. She remained single.
The Romans especially honoured her, and in her temple her
sacred fire was tended by six virgin priestesses, who were severely
punished if they allowed it to expire. In that event it was re¬
kindled from the heat of the sun.
Greek Myth and the Poets 181
Mineeva (Athene, or Pallas Athene), goddess of wisdom,
was in some respects the greatest of the goddesses. She was the
daughter of Jupiter and Metis. When Metis predicted to Jupi¬
ter that one of his children would supplant him, he endeavoured
to make this impossible, so the myth tells us, by devouring his
wife. Then, being tortured by pains in his head, he ordered Vul¬
can to cleave it open with an axe. From his exposed brain
Minerva leaped forth fully grown and armed with spear and
shield. The event shook Olympus, and Apollo stayed his chariot
to contemplate the wonder. The goddess immediately took her
place in the Olympian assembly. She remained a virgin, and was
the most loved child of Jupiter as having proceeded from himself.
She had many powers and functions, hut was worshipped in
Athens as the goddess of wisdom. Her colossal statue in ivory
and gold, by Phidias, surmounted the Parthenon and looked
down on the city of which she was protectress. She had won the
city as a prize in a competition with Neptune to determine which
of them could make the most valuable gift to men. Neptune
smote the ground with his trident and from the ground a horse
issued; but Minerva produced the olive, which the gods judged
to be the more useful, and her reward was Athens, “the eye of
Greece, mother of arts and eloquenc.” The olive-tree was deemed
sacred to her.
Minerva is represented with the shield given her by Jupiter,
in whose centre was Medusa, upon whose face all who dared to
look were turned into stone. Milton puts into the mouth of the
Elder Brother in “Comus” the question:
What was that snaky-headed Gorgon-shield
That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin,
Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone,
But rigid looks of chaste austerity,
And noble grace that dashed brute violence
With sudden adoration and blank awe!
These were pre-eminently the deities of heaven.
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The Outline of Literature
Neptune (or Poseidon) ruled the sea and all the waters of
earth. He wielded the trident, the symbol of naval power to-day.
He ruled all the lesser divinities of the waters — Triton, his son by
Amphitrite, Proteus, the Sirens, and the Sea-nymphs — Ocean-
ides and Nereids. Shakespeare has many references to Neptune.
§ 9
THE RAPE OF PROSERPINE
Pluto reigned in Hades, the infernal world whose dread
rivers of Styx, Acheron, Lethe, Cocytus, and Phlegethon tra¬
versed the realm of darkness in the midst of which he sat on his
sulphur throne. No temples were raised to the Lord of Death.
No goddess could be induced to be his spouse. Hence arose one
of the most beautiful and significant stories in all Greek myth.
Demeter (or Ceres), goddess of corn and harvests, from whose
Roman name we have our word “cereal,” wandered with her
daughter Persephone, whose name is also Proserpine, in the
flowery plain of Enna, in Sicily. The mother, goddess of the
Earth, was a daughter of Saturn and Rhea; their marriage had
united Earth to Heaven. Her child, to whom Zeus himself was
father, was to unite Earth to Hades.
Proserpine, as the Romans called her, was gathering flowers
with her young companions near Enna, when suddenly Pluto ap¬
peared in his chariot, loved her at sight, and instantly seized her
to be his consort in his silent realm. Proserpine dropped the
flowers from her apron and cried aloud to her attendant nymphs,
but the ravishing god urged forward his steeds until they were
checked by the River Cyane. There Pluto, in a frenzy of pas¬
sion, smote the ground with his sceptre ; it opened, and gave him
passage down to Erebus. The young girl-goddess, torn from
the sunlight and the happy earth, had become the bride of the*
god of death.
Ceres sought her child in a frenzy of grief. She lit two
THE FAMOUS MERCURY BRONZE BY BOLOGNA
National Museum, Florence.
In this photograph of a beautiful statue, note the
wings on Mercury’s cap presented to him by
his father, Jupiter, and the wings on his feet {ialaria).
His wand {caduceus) , given him by Apollo, was said to
have the power to turn natural hatred into love; hence
the two serpents embracing.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
Greek Myth and the Poets
183
torches at the fires of Mount Etna that she might search the
world through the night. Neither gods nor men could, or dared,
tell her of Proserpine’s fate. Nine days she wandered, and at
last, returning to Sicily, she learned the truth from Arethusa,
who had just passed through the nether world in her chaste flight
from Alpheus. “There,” she said, “I saw your Proserpine. She
was sad, but no longer was there terror in her eyes. Her look was
such as became the Queen of the realms of the dead.”
Drawn in her chariot by two dragons, Ceres flew to the
abode of the gods, where she awed even Jove by her storm of
prayers —
So mighty was the mother’s childless cry,
A cry that rang thro’ Hades, Earth, and Heaven.
Yielding to her, Jove sent Mercury to demand Proserpine of
Pluto, but made it a condition of her release that she should not
have tasted food in the lower world. When he arrived and Pluto
was about to yield, it appeared that Proserpine, walking in the
Elysian fields, had sucked the pulp of a pomegranate. This for¬
bade her surrender, but as a compromise it was decreed that she
should evermore spend half of the year with her mother on the
earth, and half with her husband below it.
Ceres waited with far-off gaze for her coming, and the meet¬
ing of mother and daughter has been the theme of poets from
Ovid to Tennyson. It is our own poet who describes their meet¬
ing:
A sudden nightingale
Saw thee, and flash’d into a frolic of song
And welcome ; and a gleam as of the moon,
When first she peers along the tremulous deep,
Fled wavering o’er thy face, and chased away
That shadow of a likeness to the King
Of Shadows, thy dark mate. Persephone !
Queen of the dead no more — ^my child! Thine eyes
Again were human-godlike, and the Sun
Burst from a swimming fleece of winter gray.
184
The Outline of Literature
And robed thee in his day from head to feet —
“Mother!” and I was folded in thine arms.
This is the deathless story. It has but one meaning.
Proserpine signifies the seed-corn, which through the winter lies
darkly hidden in the soil, and her yearly return is the symbol of
the spring.
So in the pleasant vale we stand again.
The field of Enna, now once more ablaze
With flowers that brighten as thy footstep falls.
Nothing that man knows is so interesting to him, or so fraught
with the mystery which enlarges without weighing him down, as
the change of the seasons. Still, in his poetry and imagination,
Ceres and Proserpine walk together hand-in-hand, and once more
they lead us, through the lights of spring, to the pomp which is
roses, and the wealth which is corn, and the sweetness which is
honey in the honeycomb.
• ••••••
Such, in meagre outline, is that world of myth which shim¬
mers for ever behind “the glory that was Greece and the grandeur
that was Rome.” Much of it is crude, or even repellent, but
what is beautiful and what is forbidding belongs alike to the
childhood of man. Ruskin says : “To the mean person the myth
means little; to the noble person much.” The poet, the artist,
and the dreamer will return to these stories so long as men feel
the burden and the mystery of life, and are fain to lose them in
“the light that never was on sea or land.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ovid: Metamorphores.
Lempriere : A Classical Dictionary.
The early chapters of George Grobe’s History of Greece give remarkable
summaries of Greek myth.
Thomas Bulfinch: The Age of Fable, or Beauties of Mythology.
Greek Myth and the Poets
185
Charles Mills Gayley: The Classic Myths in English Literature. This
work is based on Bulfineh’s Age of Fable, but is supplied with a large body of
valuable notes on interpretations of the myths by scholars and the use made
of them by poets, painters, and sculptors.
E. M. Berens: The Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome,
being a Popular Account of Greek and Roman Mythology.
Grace H. Kupfer: Legends of Greece and Rome. This is a charming book
for children.
Lillian Stoughton Hyde: Favourite Greek Myths. Also for children.
T. G. Tucker, Litt. D.: The Foreign Debt of English Literature.
H. A. Guerber; The Myths of Greece and Rome: their Stories, Significa¬
tion, and Origin.
H. Steuding: Greek and Roman Mythology.
There are in inexpensive editions: an abridgement of William Smith’s
Classical Dictionary ; also The Muses’ Pageant Myths and Legends of Ancient
Greece, retold by W. M. L. Hutchinson. Vol. I, Myths of the Gods; Vol. II,
Myths of the Heroes; Vol. Ill, The Legends of Thebes.
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VII
GREECE AND ROME
GREECE AND ROME
The Greek Spirit
§ 1
Before proceeding to consider the aehievements of the
great Greek poets, it is necessary to say something of
the Greek spirit, that particular national genius whieh
enabled a small people in the fifth century before Christ to pro¬
duce a literature of unparalleled grandeur and dignity, to rise to
a splendid height of exeellence in architecture and sculpture, and
to lay the foundations of mathematics, physical science, and
philosophy. It has been well said that “with the exeeption of
Christianity, the Greeks were the beginners of nearly everything
of which the modern world ean boast.”
The Greeks had great limitations. They knew nothing
about the past. At the best they only guessed. They knew no
geography. They knew next to nothing about other peoples. On
the other hand they had one great asset, a beautiful language,
particularly fitted, in its power and precision, for the immortal
expression of beautiful thoughts. The Greeks themselves were
highly eivilised, but they were only separated from barbarism by
a very thin interval. They were our dawn, but a dawn that eame,
so far as we know, without preparation or warning. The Greeks
were a young people living in the cold clear air of the early
morning. There is a strong contrast between the Greeks and
the Hebrews. To the Hebrew, the sorrow of the world was due
to disobedience to the laws of the one all-powerful God. The
Greeks had no idea of a single God, beneficent in intention, di-
189
190
The Outline of Literature
reeling the affairs of men. They had many gods, constantly
warring with each other, only intermittently concerned with
human affairs, all of them actuated by human passions, and
mainly concerned with their own adventures.
But behind the gods was Fate, determining the destiny alike
of men and gods, and against Fate it was useless to contend.
That is the prevailing note of Greek tragedy. It brought with it
a great sense of dignity. Self-respect demanded that men should
accept the decrees of Fate without protest, without pretence that
things were other than they were, and without yearnings for the
unattainable. Self-respect, too, compelled man to eschew evil
and follow good without any thought of the gods of their desires.
The Greeks were never mystics, they were realists. It has
been well said that to Homer a wave was “nothing else than salt
water.” To the Greek death was death. What happened after
he did not know and he did not trouble to guess. To the Greek
mind man stood alone and unaided in the world, and because he
so often triumphed over difficulties and accepted with splendid
dignity the hardest decrees of Fate, the worship of humanity
became the dominating feature of Greek life and Greek religion.
This worship brought with it the love for everything that makes
human life fine. The first of these things was beauty. The idols
of India and Egypt are hideous and repulsive, signifying terror
and power. But the Greeks could only worship beautiful gods,
and their statues enshrine the dreams and ideals of the wor¬
shippers. With beauty the Greeks loved justice, freedom, and
truth — all necessary for the happiness of man.
The Love of Justice, Freedom, and Truth
Perhaps because of the absence of traditions and established
conventions, the Greeks were never sentimental. And because
they were realists they loved the simple and the unadorned.
Greek poetry never has the elaborate ornamentation to be found
in such a poem as “Paradise Lost.” It is austere. In their litera-
Reproduced by permission of the Corporation of Birmingham.
“an audience in ATHENS, DURING THE REPRESENTATION OF THE AGAMEMNON,” BY SIR W. B. RICHMOND, R.A.
The front rows of the seats in the theatre were reserved for the priests, the Priest of Dionysus occupying a specially carved armchair in
the middle. The Athens theatre held 30,000 people.
Photo: Brogi.
AMPHITHEATRE AT SYRACUSE IN SICILY, ONE OF THE MOST PERFECT RUINS OF A GREEK THEATRE IN EXISTENCE
The photograph indicates the immense size of that great theatre. Sicily was one of the earliest Greek colonies, and jEschylus died there
in 4S6 b.c.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
COMIC ACTORS. ROMAN ANTIQUITIES
The classic actors, like the Japanese actors of to-day, wore
large masks and boots with soles almost like stilts, which gave
the appearance of more than human height.
Greece and Rome
191
ture as in their sculpture, the Greeks achieved the beauty of
simple directness — of sheer truth.
Three facts should be particularly borne in mind. The
Greeks were a small people living in a number of City States,
each with a few thousand inhabitants, and all of them on the sea.
Athens was the most remarkable and most interesting of these
States, and by far the greater part of the Greek literature that
has come down to us was produced in one small city, far less in
area and with a far smaller population than a London suburb.
The second fact is that certainly eighty per cent, of Greek litera¬
ture has been lost. All that exists was preserved in Alexandria.
The third fact is that the wars waged by the Greeks agamst the
Persians occasioned the birth of European patriotism. The fear
of the barbarian not only stimulated love of country, but also
caused the Greeks to regard themselves as the guardians of cul¬
ture against barbarian destruction.
The Greek spirit means the love of unadorned beauty, sim¬
plicity, truth, freedom, and justice, the dislike of exaggeration,
sentimentality, and elaboration.
The old-world stories summarised in the preceding chapter
are the substance of Greek romantic literature. Evolved in the
dawn of European life, sung by wandering bards, repeated and
elaborated from generation to generation, they were first, as has
already been related, written out in Hesiod and Homer. In these
same stories the great Greek dramatists found the plots of their
plays.
It is remarkable in how few years the great Athenian drama
was produced. ^Eschylus gained his first prize in 484 b.c., and
the Medea of Euripides, the crowning achievement of his career
was produced in 431 b.c. Fifty-three years were sufficient for
the complete development of what has been described as “the
greatest work of art the world has ever witnessed.” A similar
remarkable development characterised the drama in Elizabethan
England. All the plays of Marlowe, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson,
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The Outline of Literature
Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Webster, and Heywood
were written in thirty-eight years!
§ 2
The Greek Theatre
Like the beginnings of medieeval drama in England, those
of early Greek drama were religious. They grew out of the ritual
dance performed in the spring-time before the shrines of Dio¬
nysus, the Bacchus of the Romans, and the intimate connection
with the god of vineyards and fruitfulness remained unimpaired
in the great days of iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The
front row of the seats in the theatre in Athens was reserved for
%
the priests, the Priest of Dionysus occupying a specially carved
armchair in the middle. All citizens were expected to attend
and in the days of Pericles at the height of the power and glory
of Athens the price of their seats was given them by the state.
The Athens theatre held 30,000 people. Everyone went to the
theatre. It was a national duty.
All the plays performed were the result of competitions held
by the Government, which was also what we should call the
Church, and the companies which acted them were paid for by
wealthy men. If you wished to compete — and there could only
be three competitors each year — ^you had first to be given a
chorus, that is to say, some wealthy man would pay for a com¬
pany which would act the play you were going to write. Because
the idea of failure would have been ill-omened in what was a
religious ceremony everybody received a prize in the competition.
The practice of the theatre developed as the great tragic
period represented by the three authors named above took its
course. At the beginning all the action took place in the circular
space of the orchestra, and the “scene,” as it was called, was not
a stage, but merely a tent in which the actors changed their
clothes, and which could be used, as the similar curtains at the
back of an Elizabethan theatre were used, to represent a door or
Greece and Rome
193
a gateway or whatever veiled the action from the spectators, be¬
cause in Greek drama, unlike in our modern plays, everything in
the nature of what we should call incident took place “off.” In
the plays of iEschylus the characters in the chorus occupied this
orchestral space, and for that reason, as well as because the chorus
was the element from which tragedy as a whole sprang, the chorus
had a prominent part in the action of the play. As theatrical
technique developed the scene became a slightly raised platform
at the back of the orchestra from which the speeches of the actors
were generally delivered, the chorus remaining in the orchestra
below and tending, therefore, as in most of the plays of Euri¬
pides, to become rather a means of commentary on the action
than part of it.
The relaxation from tragic tension which in Shakespeare is
got for the most part by comic relief was provided in Greek plays
by the choral odes and dances. Compare, for instance, Macheth
with the Hippolytus of Euripides. In Macbeth, unusually for
Shakespeare, Duncan is killed in the Greek manner “off” the
stage. Macheth, in fact, in its earlier scenes and in its emotional
context represents more closely than any other of Shakespeare’s
plays the Greek way of handling a subject. The tension which
the audience must feel as a distracted dialogue between Macbeth
and Lady Macbeth, when the murder is done, is relieved by the
knocking at the gate and the comic scene of the porter. In
Hippolytus, on the other hand, when Phsedra goes off the stage
to hang herself, the relief from the tension is not got through any
comic relief, which would have been foreign to the whole Greek
mode of thinking in drama, but by the ritual dance and the song
of the chorus which take the mind of the audience straight away
from the tragic reality to the realms of romance.
The Dress of Actors
The actors, like Japanese actors to-day, wore large masks
which had probably something of the effect of a megaphone and
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The Outline of Literature
enabled their voices to be heard clearly at the back of the im¬
mense theatre in the open air. They wore buskins, large boots
with soles almost like stilts, which gave them an appearance of
more than human height, and because of this dress and because
of the fact that the story was told by dialogue rather than by
obvious action they moved hardly at all across the stage. Below,
in the orchestra, grouped round the altar of Dionysus in the
middle, was the chorus, motionless while the actors were speak¬
ing, and, when their time came, chanting their odes to the rhyth¬
mic movements of a dance in which every part of the body had its
share, and chanting them not altogether, but in two divisions, so
that the verse sung by one half would be answered by a following
verse sung by the other. In the telling of the story certain con¬
ventions were generally observed. There was usually a prologue
explaining the circumstances before the action began. The crisis,
as we have said, almost always took place “off,” and was always
narrated to the audience by a messenger, whose speech generally
is the culmination of a play. The play ended, at any rate in the
developed technique of Euripides, though not so generally in the
two preceding dramatists, with the appearance of some god who
summed up in a few words of comfort or reconciliation the tragic
passion of the drama and sent the spectators away with a sense
of peace.
§ 3
iEschylus
There is a striking resemblance, both in the novelty of their
achievement and the circumstances of their lives, between the
writers of the wonder century of Greece — the fifth century b.c.
— and the English WTiters of the Elizabethan era, like Spenser
and Raleigh. iEschylus, the eldest of the three great Greek
dramatists, was a soldier. He was born in 525 b.c., and he fought
in the Athenian army that defeated the Persians at the famous
battle of Marathon. This decisive victory of a small people over
a mighty empire had an immense effect on the character of
Photo: Rtschgtiz Collection.
^SCHYLUS
The first of the Greek Dramatists.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
SOPHOCLES
Sophocles was the second of the Greek dr amatists.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
EURIPIDES
The Vatican, Rome.
The third and greatest of the Greek tragic writers.
Photo: Rischits Collection.
“PROMETHEUS BOUND, DEVOURED BY A VULTURE,’' BY ADAM LE JEUNE
The Louvre, Paris.
A fine imaginative conception of the climax of the .(Eschylus tragedy. Prometheus
offended Jupiter. He was first chained to a rock and then, as further punishment, an
eagle was sent to gnaw at his flesh, and the earth opened, the rock to which Prometheus
was chained sinking into the abyss.
Greece and Rome
195
^schylus and of his work. His plays were written in a heroic
age when men were stimulated by unexpected and almost un¬
hoped for national success, just as the Elizabethans were stimu¬
lated by the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
The first play of iEschylus was produced when he was
twenty-six, in the first year, that is, of the wonder century — the
5th B.c. Like Shakespeare, he acted in his own dramas and
though only seven of them are extant, he is supposed to have
written ninety. There is a legend that he was killed by an eagle
dropping on his bald head, which it mistook for a rock, a tortoise
the shell of which the bird had been unable to break.
Religious fervour joined in ^schylus with pride of country
and race, the result of the glory of Marathon. He was born at
Eleusis (in 525 b.c.), the home of those religious mysteries the
nature of which the modern world knows very little. As a boy
he must have seen scores of pilgrims troubled in spirit, seeking
explanation of life’s problems or maybe release from trouble,
and he grew up obsessed with the conviction of the impossibility
of escape from the fates and furies that pursue the steps of men.
For the plots of his plays he went to the myths of his people.
He himself said that his tragedies were “morsels from the ban¬
quet of Homer.”
What are the qualities of ^schylus that have given his plays
immortality and that cause them to be read with eager interest
and enjoyment two thousand four hundred years after they were
written? Perhaps their character can best be explained by com¬
paring .<Eschylus to an Elizabethan, Marlowe, and a modern,
Victor Hugo. Like Marlowe, ^schylus was, to use Swinburne’s
phrase, “a daring and inspired pioneer.” In his music there is no
echo of any man’s before him. Read Marlowe’s History of Dr.
Faustus and you are in touch with the qualities of iBschylus —
the horror, the tremendous power, the excited passion. Aris¬
tophanes, the Athenian writer of comedies, denounced Aeschylus
as “bombastic,” and it is interesting to note that this is the adjec-
196
The Outline of Literature
tive frequently applied by critics to Victor Hugo, who, in a less
degree than Marlowe, possessed some of the characteristics of the
Greek poet.
There is never any love interest in the ^schylus plays. He
was interested in elemental forces, and he gave Fate and Fear,
Justice and Injustice the same individual personality as Bunyan
gave to similar qualities in his Pilgrim^s Progress. In his
dramas, as J. A. Symonds said, “mountains were made to speak.”
So tremendous was the power of .^schylus, that the Greeks be¬
lieved that he must have written under the immediate inspiration
of the gods. One story says that, when he was a boy, he was sent
to watch the clusters of grapes in a vineyard, and fell asleep.
While he slept the god Dionysus came to him and ordered him
to write tragedies. When he awoke he made his first attempt and
succeeded at once. Sophocles said of his great rival: “He did
what he ought to do, but did it without knowing.” Certain of his
contemporaries asserted that he wrote his tragedies while drunk
with wine. The fact seems to have been that his originality and
genius were so astounding that his fellows were forced to find
some superhuman explanation for them.
Of the seven plays of ^Eschylus that have been preserved,
Prometheus Bound is perhaps the most interesting for us from
the fact of Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound. It was the second
of a trilogy of plays, the first of which was called Prometheus the
Fire-Bearer, and the third Prometheus Unbound. Both of these
have been lost, although a portion of the third translated into
Latin hy Cicero remains to us. A summary of the play may give
some idea of the mind and manner of the dramatists.
A Summary of “Prometheus Bound”
At the beginning of the drama, Prometheus, who has of¬
fended Zeus, is chained to a rock by Hephaestus, the god who
corresponds to the Latin Vulcan. Zeus has recently established
his dynasty in Heaven and has determined to destroy the human
Greece and Rome
197
race and to populate the earth with a finer creation. Prometheus
is the typical benefactor of mankind. He has prevented the
god’s proposed destruction by giving man the gift of fire, the
most ancient of all arts, and subsequently teaching him car¬
pentry, husbandry, medicine, and seamanship. And for this
rebellion Zeus has decreed his dreadful punishment. While he
is being bound Prometheus remains proudly silent, but when
Heph^stus has left him he cries out to the Earth and the Sun
to see how he, a god, is wronged by other gods :
You see me prisoned here, a god ill-starred,
Of Zeus the enemy, hated of all
That tread the courts of his omnipotence,
Because of mine exceeding love for men.
He is visited by the Ocean Nymphs, and to them he empha¬
sises his services to mankind:
’Twas I that first to yoke and collar tamed
The servant steer, and to relieve inankind
From Labours manifold, the docile steed
I drew beneath the well-appointed car,
Proud instrument of wealthy mortals’ pride.
And none save I found for the mariner
His wave-o’er-wandering chariot, canvas-winged.
I, that devised thus gloriously for men,
Myself have no device to rid my soul
Of her sore burden!
One satisfaction is left to Prometheus. He knows, and he
alone, that a dire fate awaits Zeus himself — “It shall hurl him
down from power supreme to nothing.” His prophecy is re¬
peated to the god, who sends Hermes to Prometheus to demand
details of the threatened danger. He refuses to speak. Hermes
reminds him of the punishment which has already followed re¬
bellion, and he replies :
I would not change it for thy servitude.
Better to grieve than be a lackeying slave.
Further punishment promptly follows. An eagle is sent to
198
The Outline of Literature
gnaw at his flesh; the earth opens, and the rock to which Pro¬
metheus is chained sinks into the abyss. There has been consider¬
able discussion as to the religious meaning that .33schylus
attached to his story, and it is suggested that in the third of the
plays, one of the two that are lost, Prometheus and Zeus are
reconciled. The moral of the trilogy is that the gods “learned the
stern spirit of the law, but tempered the disposition with their
natural sympathy for humanity. So arose the new order, the
rule of reasonable law.”
Apart from Prometheus, the most interesting character that
.^schylus created was Clytemnestra in the mighty drama
Agamemnon. Clytemnestra has been compared to Lady Mac¬
beth, but she is really made of harder metal, ready, as J. A.
Symonds says, to “browbeat truth before the judgment seat of
gods or men.” When she has killed Agamemnon there is no
weakening, no regret. She is the minister of Fate, the minister
of Justice, the typical “Fury” of the Greeks. Agamemnon is
an unattractive character, and the hatred of his wife is not un¬
reasonable. Nothing, however, can excuse Clytemnestra’s crime
or ward off her punishment. Her son, Orestes, becomes the
avenger of his father, and in the ChoepJiorij the sequel to the
Agamemnon, Orestes kills his mother. He is pursued by the
Erinnyes, the daughters of the night and the ministers of punish¬
ment. In a third play, the Eumenides, Orestes after great trib¬
ulation is forgiven by the gods. Here, as elsewhere, ^Eschylus
insists that sin must be paid for before it can be forgiven.
Alschylus died in 456 b.c. in Sicily, where he is said to have
gone in dudgeon at the fact that the first prize at one of the great
dramatic contests at Athens had been awarded to his younger
rival, Sophocles.
§ 4
Sophocles
Sophocles was one of the sunniest-natured great writers in
the history of literature. He was born in 495 b.c., and was thirty
Reproduced hy special permi.^ , n ^ L. J.t- 1;, Esq.
"CLYTEMNESTRA,” BY THE HON. JOHN COLLIER
The central figure of the Agamemnon. Clytemnestra has often been compared
to Lady Macbeth. She was the typical fury of the Greeks, who “browbeat truth
before the judgment seat of gods and men.’’
The picture of Clytemnestra which appears as a Colour Plate was painted by Mr.
Collier in i88i and was an attempt to put the Homeric story into the Mycenaean age,
but owing to insufficient information the costume and important details of the
architecture are incorrect. In the later version which appears above (painted in
1914) the artist has made use of more recent researches, and has ample authority for
all the details.
Photo: Blaxland Stubbs.
ANTIGONE STREWING DUST ON THE BODY OF HER BROTHER, POLYNICES, IN THE SOPHOCLES DRAMA
From the Painting by Victor J. Robertson.
Polynices was killed while leading an assault against the city of Thebes, and Creon, king of Thebes, decreed that his body
should remain unburied. Antigone, the sister of PolynSces, disobeyed the royal order and gave her brother decent burial, and for
this she was condemned to be buried alive in a rocky vault.
Greece and Rome
199
years younger than ^schylus, and fifteen years older than Euri¬
pides. As a boy, he was famous for his good looks and his pro¬
ficiency in music and gymnastics. When he was sixteen, he was
chosen to lead the chorus of youths which celebrated the great
sea-victory of Salamis. He appeared at this festival naked,
crowned with a garland and carrying a lyre. Like iEschylus, he
was brought up in an atmosphere of patriotic fervour, but his
youth was spent in a more settled age.
The art-loving Athenians held Sophocles in great pride and
affection. He was known as the “Attic Bee,” and his character
was summed up by Aristophanes, after the dramatist’s death,
when he said that he was “kindly in the Shades even as he was on
earth.” The popularity of Sophocles can be judged from the fact
that in his fifty-seventh year he was appointed, by popular ac¬
claim, general in the Samian war. It may seem to us remarkable
to appoint a general simply on account of his genius as a poet,
but perhaps there is as much to he said for this method of selec¬
tion as for the mediaeval plan of selecting a commander of mili¬
tary or naval forces on account of his birth. It is not, however,
surprising that Pericles should have said that he vastly preferred
Sophocles the poet to Sophocles the soldier.
A beauty and pleasure loving poet, living in a beauty and
pleasure loving age, could hardly be expected to live according
to the tenets of Puritan morality. Moderation, never abstention,
was the typical Greek virtue. Plato recalls that, at the end of
his life, Sophocles rejoiced at his release from the thraldom of
passion. “Most gladly have I escaped from that, and I feel as
if I had escaped from a mad and furious master.”
Sophocles wrote over a hundred dramas, of which only seven
remain to us — CEdipus the King, CEdipus Colonus, Ajcuv, the
Antigone, Electra, the Trachinice, and Philoctetes. He intro¬
duced certain reforms into the conventional form of the drama
which had been employed by ^schylus. He gave the actors
finer costumes, he increased the number of the chorus, and he
200
The Outline of Literature
sometimes allowed three actors to be on the stage at the same
time where iEschylus only allowed two. In this way the dialogue
became >.)£ much greater importance dramatically. Goethe said
of Sophocles’ plays: “His characters all possess the gift of
eloquence, and know how to explain the motives for their actions
so convincingly that the hearer is almost always on the side of
the last speaker.”
While the plots of Sophocles’ plays are tragic, and while he
never escaped from the prevailing Greek idea of Nemesis, the
fate which pursues the whole world, there is in his dramas a far
greater serenity than there is in those of iEschylus — the serenity
of the age in which Athenian society realised its ideals and its
apirations more completely than any human society has done
since.
The Antigone may be considered as typical of Sophocles’
art.^
“The Antigone”
Creon, king of Thebes, has decreed that the body of Poly-
nices, who has been killed during an assault on the city, shall
remain unburied: “It hath been published to the town that none
shall entomb him or mourn, but leave unwept, unsepulchred, a
welcome store for the birds, as they spy him, to feast on at will.”
In spite of the king’s decree, Antigone, the sister of Polynices,
determines to bury her brother : “I will bury him : well for me to
die in doing that. I shall rest, a loved one with him whom I have
loved, sinless in my crime; for I owe a longer allegiance to the
dead than to the living.”
Arrested for her disobedience and taken before Creon, Anti¬
gone made no attempt at denial. She knew the king’s edict and
what must be the consequence of her act. “For me to meet this
doom is trifling grief; but if I had suffered my mother’s son
to lie in death an unburied corpse, that would have grieved
'The quotations are from Sir Richard Jebb.
Greece and Rome
201
me.” Antigone is condemned to be buried alive “in a rocky
vault.”
There is a love interest in the play. Antigone is betrothed
to Hasmon the son of Creon. Heemon pleads to his father for
her, but in vain. The dialogue in the scene between father and
son is particularly vivid and extraordinarily modern. Creon is
equally deaf to the advice of Teiresias, the blind prophet. The
blind man warns the king that swift punishment will follow his
obstinacy :
Thou shalt not live through many more courses of the
sun’s swift chariot, ere one begotten of thine own loins shall
have been given by thee, a corpse for corpses ; because thou
hast thrust children of the sunlight to the shades, and ruth¬
lessly lodged a living soul in the grave.
And it does. Hsemon hangs himself by the side of Anti¬
gone’s tomb, and his mother, Eurydice, stabs herself in sorrow for
the death of her son. Creon, “a rash and foohsh man,” is left to
mourn alone. The moral of the play is summed up by the
Chorus :
Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness; and rever¬
ence towards the gods must be inviolate. Great words of
prideful men are ever punished with great blows, and in old
age, teach the chastened to be wise.
It will be seen that there is a far greater humanity in
Sophocles’s tragedy than can be found in yEschylus, but in all
the Sophocles plays men remain “the playthings of the gods.”
To quote Gilbert Murray’s translation of the full chorus in
CE dipus the King:
Ye citizens of Thebes, behold; ’tis (Edipus that passeth here.
Who read the riddle-word of Death, and mightiest stood of mortal men.
And Fortune loved him, and the folk that saw him turned and looked
again.
Lo, he is fallen, and around great storms and the out-reaching sea !
202
The Outline of Literature
Therefore, O Man, beware, and look toward the end of things that be.
The last of sights, the last of days ; and no man’s life account as gain
Ere the full tale be finished and the darkness find him without pain.
<
Sophocles lived to a tranquil old age. His epitaph was
written in the famous lines:
Thrice happy Sophocles ! In good old age.
Praised as a man, and as a craftsman praised,
He died : his many tragedies were fair.
And fair his end, nor knew he any sorrow.
§ 5
Euripides
iEschylus was a soldier; Sophocles was a patriotic Athenian,
taking more than a dilettante interest in the public affairs of
his city. Euripides, the third and youngest of the great Greek
dramatists, was a recluse, out of tune with the times, detesting the
moods of the Athenian mob, professing to prefer the simple life
of the country to the life of the town. As an artist he was an
innovator, and his innovations, his breaking with tradition, made
him the butt of Aristophanes, a Tory of Tories who hated all
changes. Euripides was a sour-tempered man and loathed being
laughed at:
My spirit loathes
Those mockers whose unbridled mockery
Invades grave themes.
The poet’s temper was probably made the sourer by the fact
that he had two wives, both of whom were unfaithful to him.
Towards the end of his life he left Athens in disgust to live in
Macedonia, where he wrote his last play, the BaccTice. His
favour with the king roused the jealousy of certain courtiers, who
plotted that he should be attacked and killed by savage dogs.
When Euripides began to write, the Athenians had ceased
to believe in the gods, whose existence and ever-present power
Photo: Henry Dixon b’ Son.
CLYTEMNESTRA
FROM A PAINTING BY THE HON. JOHN COLLIER
The ruthless wife of Agamemnon who is one of the great figures of the Tragedies of .^^schylus.
Greece Eund Rome
203
were the basis of the plays of ^schylus. The age of faith had
passed. Euripides was compelled to use the elaborate method of
the Greek stage, but he chose men and women, not gods, for his
dramatis personee, and, for this reason, he is regarded as the
father of romantic drama.
While in many respects the poet was out of tune with his
age, he shared its scepticism. His unbelief had a moral basis.
To him, the legends were immoral. If they were true, then gods
were worthy of neither worship nor respect. If they were un¬
true, the whole fabric of the ancient Greek religion fell to pieces.
He was tolerant of the ancestor worship, common in ancient
Greece as in China. He appears to have had no definite belief
or disbelief in immortality, nor was he able to accept the existence
of “the eternal, not ourselves, making for righteousness.” Aris¬
tophanes called him an atheist, and the charge was not unjust.
But he insists that the absence of belief in God or the gods does
not affect morality. Remember that Euripides was a Greek. To
him virtue was attractive because it was beautiful. Apart alto¬
gether from any consideration of rewards or punishments, hap¬
piness or unhappiness, virtue was to be followed and admired for
the sake of its beauty.
In the plays of Euripides, there is an acute analysis of char¬
acter, particularly of the character of women, and this complete
understanding of women caused Mr. Gilbert Murray to call the
poet “the classic Ibsen.”
The Plays of Euripides
Euripides wrote at least seventy-five plays, of which eighteen
are in existence. Perhaps the best known of them, the Medea,
has been described by Mr. Gilbert Murray as a tragedy of char¬
acter and situation. It is one of the poet’s earliest works, and it
expresses the youth of a writer who is “a sceptic and a devotee of
truth.” The story of Jason and Medea has been partly told in
these pages. The play begins when Jason has grown weary of
204
The Outline of Literature
his sorceress mistress, and has married the only daughter of the
king of Corinth. Jason has become a middle-aged man, weary of
a hectic love affair and intent only on his career. Medea is now
a woman “sullen-eyed and hot with hate.” For his daughter’s
sake the king of Corinth banishes her from the city, allowing her
one day’s grace before she need leave. In a bitter scene with
Jason she upbraids him for his ingratitude. It was she who had
helped him to gain the Golden Fleece ; it was she who had saved
his life ; it was she who had killed his usurping uncle Pelias ; and
at the end of her upbraiding the leader of the Chorus comments :
Dire and beyond all healing is the hate
When hearts that loved are turned to enmity.
Jason is resentful, as men always are under the lashes of a
woman’s tongue:
Would to God
We mortals by some other seed could raise
Our fruits, and no blind women block our ways !
Medea is not the woman to be slighted with impunity, and
she plans a complete and horrible revenge. To her rival she will
send a deadly gift:
Fine robings and a carcanet of gold.
Which raiment let her once but take and fold
About her, a foul death that girl shall die.
And all who touch her in her agony.
But even this will not satisfy Medea. Jason must be left,
not only wifeless, but childless. To wound her faithless lover she
will kill her own children:
For never child of mine shall Jason see
Hereafter living, never shall beget
From his new bride.
In a second interview with Jason she pretends that she is
ready to submit to her fate and, when she catches sight of her
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children, she bursts into tears and, for a few minutes, becomes
human.
Ah ! wondrous hopes my poor heart had in you.
How you would tend me in my age, and do
The shroud about me with your own dear hands,
When I lay cold.
But the melting mood soon passes. She rejoices when she
hears of the death of the king’s daughter, and she determines that
her children must die too. She must not tarry in winning the
“crown of dire inevitable sin,” and the children are hurried to
their death. Jason is told of Medea’s intention, and frantically
endeavours to save his children’s lives. He batters at the door of
Medea’s house, but the children are already dead, and, appearing
on the roof of her chariot of winged dragons on which are the
children’s bodies, she prophesies the fate which is awaiting Jason
himself :
For thee, behold, death draweth on,
Evil and lonely, like thine heart: the hands
Of thine old Argo, rotting where she stands,
Shall smite thine head in twain, and bitter be
To the last end thy memories of me.
The moral is that to do evil is to contrive suffering. Jason
behaved to Medea with base ingratitude. His bad action brought
horrible results, not only to himself but to others, while Medea
sorrowfully proclaimed herself the victim of her own hard
heart. The punishment may seem grotesquely excessive, but
that often happens in life, and Euripides insists that, excessive or
not, punishment inevitably follows sin, the bill must be paid. To
live morally is to live beautifully. To live immorally is to live
dangerously, wrong doing always leading to disaster.
Aristotle lauded the genius of Euripides, and when he died
Sophocles, an artist incapable of jealousy, with all the citizens
put on mourning. With his death the great age of Greek drama
came to an end.
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§ 6
Aristophanes, a contemporary of the tragic poets, was the
supreme master of Greek comedy, which in his hands was a mix¬
ture of romanticism and topical jokes, the expression of a de¬
sire to get away in the manner, let us say, of Sir James
Barrie from the pressure of the realities of the moment, combined
with the high-spirited but effervescent buffoonery which nowa¬
days is associated with the music-hall. Aristophanes may be
compared with a modern writer of French revues. His plays are
witty comments on the follies and foibles of his time.
Aristophanes
Aristophanes was born in 448 b.c. Little is known of the
details of his life, and of his fifty-four comedies only eleven have
been preserved. Aristophanes was conservative, hating wars,
democracy, and “intellectuals.” He gibed at warmongers, dema¬
gogues, philosophers, and lawyers. In his gay moods he writes
with a charm that, as has been well said, has a genuine Shake¬
spearean flavour, as witness this Chorus from his comedy The
Frogs.
The translation is again by Mr. Gilbert Murray:
Then on ’mid the meadows deep.
Where thickest the rosebuds creep
And the dewdrops are pearliest:
A jubilant step advance
In our own, our eternal dance.
Till its joy the Glad Fates entrance
Who threaded it earliest.
For ours is the sunshine bright.
Yes, ours is the joy of light.
All pure, without danger:
For we thine Elect have been,
Thy secrets our eyes have seen.
And our hearts we have guarded clean
Toward kinsman and stranger!
Photo: Rischgilz Collection.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
HERODOTUS
The Greek Historian.
DEMOSTHENES
The Greek Orator
Photo: Anderson.
Photo; Rischgitz Collection.
PLATO
The Greek Philosopher.
ARISTOPHANES
The Capitol, Rome.
The Greek writer of Comedies.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
SOCRATES
The Pounder of Classic Philosophy.
Photo: Brogi.
MEDEA MEDITATING THE MURDER OF HER CHILDREN
Medea helped Jason to recover the Golden Fleece and went
back with him to Greece. In his tragedy, Euripides tells
how Jason grew weary of her and how she first killed the
daughter of the king of Corinth, whom he intended to marry,
and afterwards earned “the crown of dire inevitable sin" by
killing her own children.
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207
§ 7
Sappho and the Greek Anthology
The most interesting and important of the few remnants of
Greek lyric poetry that have come down to us are the work of
Sappho, the poetess, who lived on the island of Lesbos some
hundred and fifty years before the time of the Greek drama¬
tists. She was held by the Greeks in as high regard as Homer
himself, being variously referred to as the “Tenth Muse” and the
“Flower of the Graces.” Only one of her lyrics, the “Hymn to
Aphrodite,” exists in its entirety, but some fragments of her
writing have been discovered in recent years written on Egyptian
papyri. J. A. Symonds says that the world has suffered no
greater loss than the loss of Sappho’s poems. The Greek critics,
who were lucky enough to read them, claimed every line as per¬
fect, and the fragments that are left to us justify the assertion
that Sappho’s writing was distinguished by an absolutely inimita¬
ble grace. Two of her epigrams are preserved in the Greek
Anthology.
Here is one written for a fisherman’s grave :
To Pelagon Meniscus gave
This oar and basket for his grave.
That those who pass his tomb might see
How small a fisher’s wealth can be.
The Greek Anthology has a curious and interesting history.
It was originally a collection of epigrams compiled about the year
200 B.c. The Greeks used to write verses on their temples and
tombs and public buildings, and it was from these verses that
the first Anthology was composed. Other collections of lyric
poetry and later epigrams were made at various times from the
year 60 b.c. until the sixth century a.d., when the whole of these
compilations were published in seven books, which were revised
and re-arranged by a Constantinople scholar in the tenth century.
A copy of this last collection was discovered by chance in the
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The Outline of Literature
Palatine Library at Heidelberg in the year 1606, and was pre¬
sented to Pope Gregory the Fifteenth in 1623. It is still in the
Vatican Library.
The verses, as J. A. Symonds has said, introduce us to the
minutest facts of private life in Greece from the earliest classic
times to the decadent days of the Eastern Empire. Many Eng¬
lish poets have translated some or other of these exquisite verses.
Perhaps the best-known translation is Shelley’s version of Plato’s
epitaph for his friend Aster:
Thou wert the morning star among the living
Ere thy fair light had fled;
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus giving
New splendour to the dead.
§ 8
The Greek Orators and Historians
So far as prose writing is concerned, the things that mainly
preoccupied the ancients were oratory, history, and philosophy.
Demosthenes the Athenian was the most famous of all Greek
orators. He was eager for a united Greece with Athens, not as
a tyrant, but as a single-minded leader and inspirer. He opposed
all hazardous adventures. He attacked corruption. In a dozen
respects he proved himself a long-sighted cautious statesman.
Always he pitted himself against Philip of Macedon, denouncing
his plots against Hellenic liberty in the series of famous speeches
known as the Philippics.
The Greek historians best known to us are Xenophon, a
general turned war correspondent, Herodotus, and Thucydides.
Herodotus, the “father of history,” wrote just after Athenian
civilisation had been delivered from the fear of the Persians. He
was not content to describe the immediate forces which led to the
great campaign which resulted in the Greek victories of Mara¬
thon and Salamis, but further back still into the history of
Egypt, about which he could only guess.
Greece and Rome
209
Thucydides wrote after the great internal struggle in Greece
which brought about the downfall of the Athenian Empire, and
with its downfall the end of Greek classical literature. His his¬
tory of the Peloponnesian war is conceived not so much as a
record as a work of art. We get a picture of the triumph of
Athens and her gradual leadership of a group of island states, of
the rise to power and the unchallenged eminence of Pericles, and
of all those elements in the policy of Pericles and of the city state
which he ruled which were the seeds of future disaster.
The great Greek biographer, Plutarch, though writing in
Greek, wrote under the Roman Empire and within the Christian
era. His Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans had probably
more influence on modern thought when the classics came to be
studied again at the Renaissance than any other single book. In
the translation by Sir Thomas North they were the source of
Shakespeare’s Roman plays. They gave the impulse to the prac¬
tice of biography in England which began with the books we
have just mentioned, and they have been a constant inspiration to
moralists and statesmen. Probably no book except the Bible had
a stronger influence in England in Elizabethan times.
§ 9
Plato
The dominating figure in Athens at the end of the fifth cen¬
tury B.c. was the philosopher, Socrates, the son of a stonemason,
and himself “a clumsy and slovenly figure.” The dominating
figures in the opening years of the fourth century were Plato,
the pupil of Socrates, and Aristotle. Socrates was never able to
write, and his teachings have been preserved in Plato’s “Dia¬
logues,” though it remains doubtful how much of the philosophy
is the master’s and how much the pupil’s. Plato lived to be
eighty. Except for two visits to Sicily, where he endeavoured,
wdth tragic failure, to put his political theories into practice, he
lived his long life in Athens, teaching philosophy in the shaded
VOL. I — 14
210
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portico of his Academy, which was pleasantly situated in a public
park a mile outside the city gates. Among his pupils was Aris¬
totle, afterwards the tutor of Alexander the Great, who in later
years had his own school at Athens at the Lyceum. Aristotle
was the father of modern scienee. But neither with Aristotle’s
science nor with the philosophy of Socrates and Plato is this
Outline eoncerned.
Plato was, however, also a great literary artist with the char¬
acteristic Greek love of beauty and of life. His writings consist
of the early Dialogues, the Republic, the first description of
Utopia ever written, and the Laws, in which he developed his
political teaching.
The fundamental ideas of the Republic, the most famous of
Plato’s books, is that the good man can only exist in the good
state. In Plato’s time the old Greek devotion to the state, to
service for the commonweal, had degenerated into self-seeking.
Rulers had grown corrupt. Politicians thought only of the
“spoils.” And with corruption had come ignoranee. The lead¬
ers of the people were blind and selfish. The first essential was
that the rulers should be educated, properly prepared for their
positions. Children should be taught to love beauty and hate
ugliness, and to “recognise and welcome reason.” And since
beauty and knowledge are the substance of God, the end of
Plato’s idea of education was the realisation of God and the
service of man.
But even the educated may deteriorate. A youth may be
trained for service only to become the slave of self-seeking. So
for his governing class Plato proposed the ahohtion of the family
and of private property, both calculated, he contended, to en¬
courage exclusiveness and selfishness. Plato was a eugenist. The
state was to regulate the association of the sexes, and to look after
children immediately after birth. Mothers and fathers were not
even to know their own children, lest favouritism and unequal
treatment should prevail and all the children of each generation
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211
were to be brought up as brothers and sisters. It must be remem¬
bered that Plato was only thinking of the creation of an ideal
ruling caste. He had no thought for the mass of the people, who
were to be left with their own goods, their own families, and
without his idealistic education. He was dreaming of a people’s
aristocracy. It should be added that the theories propounded in
the Republic were severely criticised by Aristotle. They are far
away from the tracts of modern socialism, and they are, to some
extent, kin to the philosophy of Nietzsche.
Plato’s quality as a writer is exhibited in his wonderful de¬
scription of the death of Socrates in the Phcedo. The old philoso¬
pher was, it will be remembered, condemned in the year 399 b.c.
to drink a draught of deadly hemlock on the trumped-up charge
that he had corrupted the youth of Athens. Plato says :
Soon the jailor, who was the servant of the Eleven,
entered and stood by him, saying : “To you, Socrates, whom
I know to be the noblest and gentlest and best of all who
ever came to this place, I will not impute the angry feelings
of other men, who rage and swear at me when, in obedience
to the authorities, I bid them drink the poison — indeed, I
am sure that you will not be angry with me; for others, as
you are aware, and not I, are the guilty cause. And so fare
you well, and try to bear lightly what must needs be; you
know my errand.” Then bursting into tears he turned away
and went out.
Socrates looked at him and said: “I return your good
wishes, and will do as you bid.” Then turning to us, he said:
“How charming the man is! since I have been in prison he
has always been coming to see me, and at times he would talk
to me, and was as good as could be to me, and now see how
generously he sorrows for me. But we must do, as he says,
Crito; let the cup be brought, if the poison is prepared: if
not, let the attendant prepare some.”
“Yet,” said Crito, “the sun is still upon the hilltops,
and many a one has taken the draught late, and after the an¬
nouncement has been made to him he has eaten and drunk.
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and indulged in sensual delights; do not hasten, then, there
is still time.”
Socrates said: “Yes, Crito, and they of whom you
speak are right in doing thus, for they think that they will
gain by the delay; but I am right in not doing thus, for I do
not think that I should gain anything by drinking the poison
a little later ; I should be sparing and saving a life which is
already gone : I could only laugh at myself for this. Please,
then, to do as I say, and not refuse me.”
Crito, when he heard this, made a sign to the servant,
and the servant went in, and remained for some time, and
then returned with the jailer carrying a cup of poison. So¬
crates said: “You, my good friend, who are experienced in
these matters, shall give me directions how I am to proceed.”
The man answered : “You have only to walk about until your
legs are heavy, and then to lie down, and the poison will act.”
At the same time he handed the cup to Socrates, who in the
easiest and gentlest manner, without the least fear or change
of colour or feature, looking at the man with all his eyes,
Echecrates, as his manner was, took the cup and said: “What
do you say about making a libation out of this cup to any
god? May I, or not?” The man answered: “We only pre¬
pare, Socrates, just so much as we deem enough.” “I under¬
stand,” he said; “yet I may and must pray to the gods to
prosper my journey from this to that other world — -may this,
then, which is my prayer, be granted to me.” Then holding
the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off
the poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to control
our sorrow ; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too
that he had finished the draught, we could no longer forbear,
and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast; so
that I covered my face and wept over myself, for certainly
I was not weeping over him, but at the thought of my own
calamity in having lost such a companion. Nor was I the
first, for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain
his tears, had got up and moved away, and I followed; and
at that moment, Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the
time, broke out in a loud cry which made cowards of us all.
“SAPPHO,” BY SIR LAWRENCE ALMA-TADEMA, R.A.
The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung.
Byron.
Sappho and her pupils lived together on the island of Lesbos.
Photo: Anderson.
SAPPHO
National Museum, Naples.
The great Greek woman poet,
Photo: Rischgitz Collectiov.
“school of ATHENS,” BY RAPHAEL
Vatican.
Plato had a school of philosophy on the shaded terrace of the grove of Academus, outside Athens.
Greece and Rome
213
Socrates alone retained his calmness: “What is this strange
outcry?” he said. “I sent away the women mainly in order
that they might not offend in this way, for I have heard that
a man should die in peace. Be quiet, then, and have
patience.”
When we heard that, we were ashamed, and refrained
our tears ; and he walked about until, as he said, his legs be¬
gan to fail, and then he lay on his back, according to the di¬
rections, and the man who gave him the poison now and then
looked at his feet and legs; and after a while he pressed his
foot hard and asked him if he could feel; and he said, “No”;
and then his leg, and so upwards and upwards, and showed
us that he was cold and stiff. And he felt them himself, and
said: “When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the
end.” He was beginning to grow cold about the groin, when
he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and
said (they were his last words) — he said: “Crito, I owe a
cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?”
“The debt shall be paid,” said Crito; “is there anything
else ?” There was no answer to this question ; but in a minute
or twb a movement was heard, and the attendants uncovered
him ; his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth.
Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend, whom I
may truly call the wisest, and justest, and best of all the men
whom I have ever known.
§ 10
No two peoples were ever more unlike than the Greeks and
the Romans. The Greeks were essentially artists, loving beauty,
earing for all that made the individual life dignified and happy.
They were intellectually adventurous, inquisitive in speculation,
and daring in the profession of their behefs. The Romans, on the
other hand, were eminently practical and unimaginative; their
genius was for war and politics, and their ehief eoncern was for
order and commercial prosperity. Wherever the Roman armies
went they carried law and built roads.
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Contrasting his countrymen with the Greeks, Virgil sum¬
marised the work of the Romans when he wrote in the iEneid :
Others, belike, with happier grace
From bronze or stone shall call the face,
Plead doubtful causes, map the skies.
And tell when planets set or rise;
But, Roman, thou — do thou control
The nations far and wide.
Be this thy genius, to impose
The rule of peace on vanquished foes.
Show pity to the humbled soul.
And crush the sons of pride.
The Romans had a genius for administration and colonisa¬
tion, propitiating the peoples whom they conquered by the justice
of their government and by their splendid scheme of recognising
every man born in a province occupied by the Roman legions as
a Roman citizen.
The Roman Spirit
The history of Greece, so far as we know it, begins with a
magnificent literary achievement. Homer was the first of the
Greeks. But although we know what happened in Rome so long
ago as the eighth century before Christ, there was no Roman
literature until six hundred years later — there was no Roman
literature, indeed, until the Romans came into intimate contact
with Greek civilisation. Early in the third century b.c., after the
first war with Carthage, the Romans conquered the island of
Sicily, which had been colonised by the Greeks centuries before.
The evidence of Greek culture exists to this day in Sicily, and at
Taormina and at Syracuse there are far more complete Greek
theatres than there can be found anywhere in Greece itself.
After the conquest of Sicily, Greek scholars and artists settled
in Rome, and the Romans, then a rude people with no art, no
literature, and with the baldest and most unimaginative of re-
Greece and Rome
215
ligions, were dazzled and fascinated by a culture of which they
learned for the first time.
Latin literature began with the translation of the “Odyssey”
in the third century b.c.^ and afterwards of the Greek tragedies
by Greek slaves in the service of Roman masters. Again, under
the influence of the Greeks, the Romans began to build theatres,
imitating Athenian models, but building of wood instead of stone,
and using the orchestra, where the Greek chorus was placed, for
the seats of the senators and other important persons. The plays
produced in these early Roman theatres were comedies based on
the Greek, and often translations of the comic dramatists who
followed Aristophanes in Athens.
The first important writer of Latin comedies was Plautus,
whose writings belong to the end of the third century and the be¬
ginning of the second century b.c. He wrote in all a hundred
and thirty plays, of which twenty are still in existence. They are
strangely like modern French farces, the fun being derived from
foolish fathers, spendthrift sons, jealous husbands, cunning
slaves, and traffickers in all sorts of vice. Plautus was followed
by Terence, who was born in Carthage, and brought to Rome as a
slave. Nearly all the plays of Terence were adaptations from the
Greek, and are instinct with the essentially Greek idea that con¬
duct should be based on reason, and consideration should ac¬
company authority. Terence died in 149 b.c. Subsequently
Roman writers agreed in eulogising the purity of his Latin style.
The Romans were never able to write tragedy at all com¬
parable with the magnificence of iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euri¬
pides. Ennius, a contemporary of Terence, who is sometimes
called the father of Roman poetry, boasted that the soul of
Homer had migrated into him through a peacock. But there is
no evidence in his epics or in his tragedies that this was a fact.
Roughly it may be said that there was no Latin literature
of outstanding importance until the first century b.c. That was
the Golden Age of Rome, so far as letters are concerned, as the
216
The Outline of Literature
fifth century b.c. was the Golden Age of Athens. It was the
century of Cieero and Ceesar, Horace and Virgil, Livy, Ovid,
Catullus, and Lucretius, the age in which nine-tenths of the
Latin literature that has come down to us was produced. This
century saw the end of the Republic and the beginning of the
Empire. It was the time of Rome’s greatest material prosperity
and glory. Her legions had marched east and west, north and
south, carrying their eagles into Asia, to the borders of the Afri¬
can desert, to the banks of the Danube, through Spain, Italy,,
and England. Rome was the first world-empire, and it was when
Rome was at the very apex of her glory that her literature was
produeed. The same thing happened in Greece, for, as has al¬
ready been shown, the Greek drama followed the Athenian defeat
of the Persians.
§ 11
Virgil
Virgil, who was born in 70 b.c. and died in 19 b.c., was the
most patriotic of all Roman writers. He loved Italy as Shake¬
speare loved England. His father was a small farmer, and he
was brought up in the country, retaining through his life a deep
love of country life and the Spartan peasant virtues. His
“Eelogues,” a series of pastoral poems, were begun in his coun¬
try home and finished in Rome when he was thirty-three. Seven
years later he completed the “Georgies,” in which, at the sug¬
gestion of M«cenas, the Roman millionaire who loved to be the
patron of poets, he described the year’s work of the Italian
farmer.
The “Georgies” is a poem of masterly beauty and finish.
It is a glorification of the labour of the fields, but it is more than
that. Virgil, the farmer’s son, idealises the work of husbandry
with knowledge and sympathy, and Virgil, the nature-lover,
revels in the varied splendour of the world. Sunshine and storm,
summer stars and winter floods, comets and eclipses, all delight
the poet, whose muse can also joy in peaceful scenes of crops and
Greece and Rome
217
pasture lands. For wild animals he has a strong attraction, and
it has been well said that for those who have lived close to nature,
particularly in southern lands, no other book possesses the charm
of the “Georgies.”
Virgil’s great poem the “iEneid” was finished in 19 b.c. He
left instructions that the manuscript should be destroyed — it was
his intention to devote three more years to polishing the poem —
but his wish was overruled by order of the Emperor Augustus.
In the “^neid” Virgil set out to write a poem which should ex¬
plain to the people of the time in which he lived their origin and
the reasons for their existence. The “Iliad” and the “Odyssey”
gave the Greek peoples all round the fringes of the Mediterran¬
ean a story of their origin which satisfied and even excited them.
The Romans, who had gradually won political dominance over
all the places where Greek legends were current, had themselves,
except for the trivial story of Romulus and Remus symbolised
for them by the bronze figure of the wolf in the Capitol, nothing
in the past to which they could attach themselves.
A National Story
Virgil provided Rome in the “^neid,” his Homeric epic,
with a national story, beautifully told, full of the cultured excel¬
lences of a man using a language which had reached at the moment
the pitch of literary perfection, and with just enough relation to
the currently known legends of Greece as to win a polite, if not
a sincere, acceptance from the readers of the time.
.dSneas, the hero of the epic, is one of the Trojan heroes.
After the capture of Troy by the Greeks, he makes a long seven
years’ voyage westward, eventually landing at Carthage on the
iVorth coast of Africa. The first lines of Dryden’s translation of
the “.^neid” indicate the heroic note of the poem :
Arms and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,
And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,
Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.
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The Outline of Literature
Dido, the queen of Carthage, falls in love with ^neas, who
tells her the story of the fall of Troy. In this story Virgil
narrates, for the first time, the legend of the wooden horse, in
which on the advice of the sage Nestor the Greeks hid themselves
and thus contrived to enter the city.
^neas is warned by the gods not to stay in Carthage, and
he prepares secretly to depart. Dido discovers his intention, and
when she finds that all her persuasion and cajolery cannot alter
his purpose, she stabs herself with the hero’s sword.
It is in the sixth book that Virgil links the Trojan with the
city that the poet loved, ^neas lands on the western shore of
Italy and hurries to the cavern of the Sibyl. He tells the prophet¬
ess that he is bound for Hades to see the face of his sire, Anchises,
and with her as his guide he descends to the shadowy homes of
the dead. “Now, man thyself, ^neas, and follow me.”
They are ferried across the Styx by Charon, the gloomy
ferryman, passing the realms of despair, haunted by phantoms
and monsters, where Alneas sees many of the heroes of the Trojan
War, and where he meets Queen Dido, hate burning unquench¬
able in her eyes. At last they reach Elysium, where Alneas’s
father reveals to him the future glory of his race. He bids him
behold the spirits of his descendants, the Romans that are to be,
“the breed of heroes” destined to return to earth to fill the world
with their glory. Leaving the land of Spirits, iEneas arrives at
the mouth of the Tiber. He is welcomed by Latinus, king of
the Laurentines, whose daughter Alneas marries, and founds a
fabled city — and thus the poet involves the mythical origin of
Rome.
The charm of the “^Eneid” lies in its deep reverence for the
old gods, the old spirit, and the old glory of Rome. The charac¬
ters themselves have little of the heroic attraction of Homer’s
creations, for Virgil generally lacked the gift of endowing his
characters with vivid humanity. Dido is his greatest success. In
the fourth book of the “Alneid” she is one of the most living and
/
Photo: Braun*
“death of SOCRATES,” BY DAVID
The story of this great episode is told by Plato.
Photo; Anderson.
“the fates,” by MICHAEL ANGELO
Pitti Gallery, Florence.
The names of the Fates were Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. The first spun the fates of
men, the second apportioned them, and the third cut them off. They presided over birth as
well as death, and the gods, as well as men, were subject to them. The note of Greek
tragedy is that man is helpless in the hands of these Fates. This conception was borrowed
to some extent by the Romans, to whom the Fates were also “lords above lords and gods
behind gods.”
Greece and Rome
219
warm-blooded women in poetry, and her story is the first and one
of the greatest pieces of romantic writing in the world. She ap¬
pears to iEneas a vision of dignity and loveliness :
The beauteous Dido, with a num’rous train
And pomp of guards, ascends the sacred fane.
Such on Eurotas’ banks, or Cynthus’ height,
Diana seems ; and so she charms the sight.
When in the dance the graceful goddess leads
The choir of nymphs, and overtops their heads :
Known by her quiver, and her lofty mien.
She walks majestic, and she looks their queen;
Latona sees her shine above the rest.
And feeds with secret joy her silent breast.
Such Dido was ; with such becoming state.
Amidst the crowd, she walks serenely great.
Their labour to her future sway she speeds.
And passing with a gracious glance proceeds ;
Then mounts the throne, high plac’d before the shrine:
In crowds around, the swarming people join.
She takes petitions, and dispenses laws.
Hears and determines every private cause;
Their tasks in equal portions she divides.
And where unequal, there by lots decides.
Virgil was buried in Naples. The poet was a tall, dark,
handsome man, of a modest and gentle disposition, silent, diffi¬
dent, and religious, living a quiet life, loving his friends and lov¬
ing his country. No great writer has ever been held in deeper
affection by his contemporaries, and his fame in his own country
and his own time has never been dimmed. The scholars of the
Middle Ages knew his writings as they knew the Bible and the
copious writings of the Fathers of the Church. The Renais¬
sance gave him an even wider appreciation. When Shakespeare
made Jessica say:
In such a night
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
Upon the wild sea banks and waft her love
To come again to Carthage,
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he was writing in a spirit steeped in Virgilian influence. A part
of the permanence of Virgil’s influence (though this would not
have affected Shakespeare) was due to a misunderstanding of
one of his poems. In the fourth section of the “Eclogues”
there is a passage widely taken by the early Christians to be a
prophecy on the part of the poet of the birth of Christ:
Come are those last days that the Sybil sang :
The ages’ mighty march begins anew.
Now comes the virgin, Saturn reigns again:
Now from high heaven descends a wondrous race.
Thou on the newborn babe — who first shall end
That age of iron, bid a golden dawn
Upon the broad world — chaste Lucina, smile:
On thee, child, everywhere shall earth, untilled,
Show’r, her first baby-offerings, vagrant stems
Of ivy, foxglove, and gay briar, and bean ;
Unbid the goats shall come big-uddered home,
Nor monstrous lions scare the herded kine.
Thy. cradle shall be full of pretty flowers :
Die must the serpent, treacherous poison-plants
Must die ; and Syria’s roses spring like weeds.
Virgil became then, in a sense, one of the forerunners of the
Christian religion, and the honour which was paid to him in this
respect remains for ever in the circumstance that Dante in “The
Divine Comedy” made Virgil his guide through Hell, Purga¬
tory, and Heaven.
§ 12
Quintus Horatius Elaccus — universally named as Horace —
of all the Roman classics is the most loved and quoted. He is
the most companionable. When Voltaire called him the best of
preachers, he meant that he preached not from a pulpit but in the
friendliest way at your shoulder. It has been said of him, “He
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221
probed every wound with so gentle a hand that the patient smiled
under the operation.”
Horace
He is the best fellow to go a walk with, unfailing in hours of
vacancy or discomfort, always ready to give you a felicitous
phrase or a flash of tender wit to carry off your mood. It is not
his part to exalt the deeds of heroes, as did Virgil, or to unfold the
mysteries of the Universe like Lucretius, or to “treat of Fate,
and Chance, and change in human life,” in the ways of the Greek
tragedians ; he is the tactful and intimate adviser who puts in his
word when he sees it will be helpful. As Pope has it:
Horace still charms with graceful negligence,
And without method talks us into sense,
Will, like a friend, familiarly convey
The truest notions in the easiest way.
Ruskin, writing to an inquirer on Bible-reading, boldly said:
The best message for any of your young men who really are
trying to read their Bibles is — whatever they first chance to
read, on any morning. But here’s a Pagan passage for
them, which will be a grandly harmonised bass for them for
whatsoever words they get on the New Year.
The passage he referred to was Horace’s in his Epistle to Albius
Tibullus, which Conington renders :
Let hopes and sorrows, fears and angers be,
And think each day that dawns the last you’ll see;
For so the hour that greets you unforseen
Will bring with it enjoyment twice as keen.
Horace died just eight years before the Christian era. He
was sprung from the people. His father, indeed, had been a
slave, and as a freedman he rose no higher than to be a kind of
commission agent at auctions. Yet to him Horace owed every-
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thing. After leaving school in Rome he finished his education
at Athens, and was there when the news came of the assassination
of Julius Caesar. When Brutus and Cassius arrived to take com¬
mand of the Roman provinces in the East, Horace and his fel¬
low-students were swept into the campaign which failed at
Philippi. Although then over twenty-two he impressed Brutus
and received the command of a legion. But this episode was
foreign to his character and career. It must have advanced him
socially, however, when, on returning to Rome under the amnesty
proclaimed by Octavius, he became a civil servant. He began to
make distinguished friends, and his career was established when
Virgil introduced him to the wealthy and cultured Meecenas, the
friend and chief adviser of Augustus, whose name is synonymous
with generous patronage of men of letters. In the train of
Msecenas he went to Brundusium, the modern Brindisi, and his
account of the journey is one of the most natural and vivid
glimpses of Roman life and habits that we possess. It contains
also a delightful reference to his meeting with his friend and
fellow-poet, Virgil:
What hand-shaking ! While sense abides,
A friend to me is worth the world besides.
Although he had fought for the Republican party, he gained
the complete confidence of his new friends, and when Msecenas
presented to him a small estate in the valley of Ustica it was
accepted by him with manly grace and gratitude. There is no
more famous gift in literary history.
In this Sabine retreat — the little farm thirty miles from
Rome, his own to enjoy — Horace fulfilled his dream of poetic
retirement. Here he lived the simple life, watched the Roman
world go by, invoked the Muse, cultivated his fields, and had his
friends to spend a few days with him as often as he could per¬
suade them to turn their backs on the smoke, noise, and vices of
Rome. And these friends, who included great soldiers, courtiero,
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223
men of affairs, and many humbler folk, loved Horace for his
friendly candour about the lives they were living and the am¬
bitions that were costing them so much in health and peace of
mind.
In counselling them he counsels us all. His gospel is that
of self-restraint, reasonable ambitions, contentment, and the en¬
joyment of life from day to day. Is his young friend, Licinius
Murena, becoming giddy with success, and eager for violent po¬
litical acts? Horace, in one of his most famous odes, counsels
him (the translation is by Sir Stephen E. De Vere) :
Tempt not the deep; nor while you fly
The storm, Licinius, steer too nigh
The breakers on the rocky shore ;
Hold fast, contented evermore,
The way of Peace, the Golden Mean:
That bounded space which lies between
The sordid hut and palace hall.
He is always trying to abate the “will to live” in his friends
when he sees that it is controlling them instead of being con¬
trolled. He pleads with his patron Msecenas to leave the joyless
feasts of Rome, and its sweltering heat, for the peace and cool¬
ness of the country :
Happy the man, and he alone.
Who master of himself can say.
To-day at least hath been my own.
For I have clearly liv’d to-day:
Then let to-morrow’s cloud arise.
Or purer suns o’erspread the cheerful skies.
Philip Francis.
Horace’s touch is so light, and his address so intimate, that
he can warn a friend in the height of his prosperity that he will
have to die and leave all. He does this repeatedly, as in the
deathless ode to Postumus (“Eheu fugaces Postume, Pos-
tume”) :
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In vain shall we war’s bloody conflict shun,
And the hoarse scudding gale
Of Adriatic seas,
Or fly the southern breeze,
That through the Autumn hours wafts pestilence and bale.
For all must view Cocytus’ pitchy tide
Meandering slow, and see
The accursed Danaids’ moil,
And that dread stone recoil,
Sad Sisyphus is doomed to heave eternally.
Land, home, and winsome wife must all be left
And cypresses abhorred.
Alone of all the trees
That now your fancy please.
Shall shade his dust, who was a little while their lord.
Sir Theodore Martin.
Such exhortations are but the foil to his delightful, if very pagan,
calls to love and wine and roses, and his rallyings of coquettes
like Lydia, Pyrrha, Chloe, Glycera, Lyde, and the rest. In this
vein nothing is* more dainty than his counsel to the too anxious
Leuconoe, who had been dabbling in the occult — trying to learn
her destiny from Babylonish oracles. He advises here, as he ad¬
vises every young woman still, to avoid all such nonsense;
Far wiser is it to endure
Those ills of life we cannot cure.
What though this winter, that exhausts
The Tyrrhene surge on shattered coasts
Should be the last for thee and me?
It matters not, Leuconoe !
Fill high the goblet ! Envious Time
Steals, as we speak, our fleeting prime.
Away with hope ! Away with sorrow !
Snatch thou To-day, nor trust To-morrow.
Sir Stephen E. De Vere.
Countless modern poets have exhausted their art in trying
to give the spirit of these effusions in English verse, but though
i
National Gallery, London
Photo: Anderson.
“HORACE," BY RAPHAEL
Rome.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
The Latin poet who has most affected modern minds.
OVID
The Latin poet who retells the classic myths in his
“ Metamorphoses.”
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
CICERO
The Vatican, Rome.
The great Roman orator.
Greece and Rome
225
much can be done the essence flies. Milton did wonders with the
famous ode to Pyrrha (“Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa”)
in his rendering, which begins ;
What slender youth bedew’d with liquid odours
Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave,
Pyrrha ? for whom bind’st thou
In wreaths thy golden hair.
Plain in thy neatness ?
It has been suggested that Horace uttered commonplaces.
He did, but they are the commonplaces which every generation
needs, and he gave them lyric forms so perfect that these have
been handed down through nearly two thousand years of change
and tumult. It may be hinted that his philosophy is that of
running away from life. It is far more just to say that it teaches
us not to let life run away with our best selves, and our real
capacities to enjoy and improve it. He can exhort in terms which
lack nothing of grave stimulus, as in his words to Lollius :
Unless you light your early lamp, to find
A moral book ; unless you form your mind
To noble studies, you shall forfeit rest.
And love or envy shall distract your breast.
For the hurt eye an instant cure you find:
Then why neglect, for years, the sickening mind?
Dare to be wise ; begin, for, once begun.
Your task is easy; half the work is done.
And sure the man, who has it in his power
To practise virtue, and protracts the hour.
Waits like the rustic, till the river dried:
Still glides the river and will ever glide.
Philip Francis.
Not the greatest of the Roman poets, but none is more
secure of immortality than Horace. And it is pleasant to know
that, like other poets, though with truer prevision, he was con¬
vinced that his songs would live. In one of his odes to M^cenas
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he flings self-doubt aside and joyously announces (we quote Sir
Theodore Martin’s version) :
Though cradled at a poor man’s hearth,
His offspring, I shall not
Go down to mix with common earth,
Forgetting and forgot.
§ 13
Lucretius, Ovid, and Juvenal
Apart from the heroic poetry of Virgil and the lyrics of
Horace, there are three other forms of Roman poetry. There is
the great philosophic poem of Lucretius, “On the Nature of
Things,” written in the early part of the first century b.c. Sec¬
ondly, there is what may be called the society verse of Ovid, a
contemporary of Virgil and a pleasure-loving artist whose re¬
solve to keep outside the political turmoil of his day did not pre¬
vent his being banished to a town on the banks of the Black Sea
far away from the colour and gaiety of Rome. In his “Meta¬
morphoses” Ovid retells many of the ancient Greek myths.
Finally, there were the satirists of whom the most eminent
was J uvenal, a much later poet, who has left us a bitter picture
of Rome under the Emperors, when the old patriotic spirit had
disappeared, when wealth had elbowed worth out of all positions
of eminence, when the parvenu flourished, and vice and vulgarity
were rampant.
Juvenal, who was translated by Dryden and imitated by
Dr. Johnson, did not mince words in his denunciations:
Who would not, reckless of the swarm he meets.
Fill his wide tablets, in the public streets.
With angry verse? when, through the mid-day glare.
Borne by six slaves, and in an open chair.
The forger comes, who owes this blaze of state
To a wet seal, and a fictitious date ;
Greece and Rome
227
Comes like the soft Maecenas, lolling by,
And impudently braves the public eye !
Or the rich dame, who stanched her husband’s thirst
With generous wine, but drugged it deeply first !
And now, more dexterous than Locusta, shows
Her country friends the beverage to compose,
And, midst the curses of the indignant throng.
Bears, in broad day, the spotted corpse along.
§ 14
Catullus
Catullus was born at Verona about the year 87 b.c. His
father, Valerius, a wealthy man, was a friend of Julius Csesar.
Catullus, not having to depend upon a patron, wrote to please
himself and his friends — especially his lady-friends, of whom the
chief was Leshia, upon whose pet sparrow he wrote poems which
have been the envy and despair of light versifiers ever since his
day. No poet was ever so many-sided. He was one of the most
witty of men; his pathos, as displayed in the elegy on his brother,
rings deep and true ; his love-songs are the finest in all antiquity ;
his style is as rich in colouring as the best of Keats. It may in¬
deed be said as truly of Catullus as of Goldsmith, that he touched
nothing which he did not adorn.
§ 15
Cicero
Cicero, the most famous of all the Latin prose-writers was
born in 106 b.c. He was a busy lawyer-politician, whose life
was spent amid the intrigues of Roman politics at the epoch when
the Republic was destroyed and the Empire began. He was a
man of easy-going disposition, who always found it difficult to be
rancorous, who forgave his enemies easily, and was often on the
most friendly terms with the bitter foes of yesterday. Such a
man must inevitably be an inconstant politician, but despite his
admiration for Julius Csesar, Cicero was an honest republican.
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And, though he was a man of somewhat fearful mind, he had
courage enough at the end of his life vehemently to denounce
Mark Antony just after he, with Octavius, had entered Rome
after defeating Brutus and Cassius at Philippi. Antony vowed
vengeance, and a few days later Cicero was murdered by Popil-
ius Leenus, who sent the head and hands of the orator to Antony,
who nailed them to the front of the rostrum from which Cicero
had made many of his famous speeches.
During his life, Cicero held many important public offices,
but he survives more by the speeches that he made in the law
courts than by his political orations. Many of these speeches are
instinct with excitement and interest, and can be read to-day
almost as if they had just been addressed to a jury at the Old
Bailey.
Sometimes Cicero, like Burke and other modern orators,
was not above writing a speech which purported to be delivered
and never was. A man called Milo killed a famous and disre¬
putable Roman named Clodius in an inn on the Appian Way.
He was arrested and tried for the offence, and just as if a wealthy
man to-day killed somebody at Richmond and had the money
to pay for the defence, he briefed Cicero as the leading defending
counsel of the time. Cicero had many great qualities, but cour¬
age was not one of them. When he went to the Court to plead
for his client he found it full of troops, lost his nerve, and was
unable to say more than a few broken words. The prisoner was
sentenced to banishment, and one day some weeks afterwards,
when he was sitting at Marseilles, he received a letter from his
defending counsel enclosing the speech Pro Milone, which is
probably the most familiar work of Cicero to schoolboys. The
convict who was its subject-matter liked it so well that he wrote
a letter back to the barrister, saying: ‘T am glad that you did
not deliver that speech, because if you had I should have got off,
and I should not be eating this excellent mullet on which I am
now lunching.”
Photo: Anderson.
CICERO DENOUNCES CATILINE
Prom the painting by Maccari, Rome.
Cicero reached the height of his career as an orator with his famous denunciation of Catiline before the Roman Senate. The charge
of treason failed for want of evidence. Catiline vowed vengeance against his accuser, and Cicero’s later years were shadowed by the
fear of assassination In the end he was killed by a creature of Antony, whom he had also denounced.
Photo: W. A. Mansell &” Co.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Emperor and Stoic: almost the last of the Pagan philosophers
Greece and Rome
229
In addition to his speeches Cicero wrote philosophical
treatises and a series of letters which, like Alexander Pope, he
evidently anticipated would be published. These letters throw
an astonishing flood of light on the life of Rome at the end of the
Republic; and it is largely to them that we owe our intimate
knowledge of the Imperial City at the beginning of the Christian
Era. The vehemence of Cicero’s oratory may be appreciated
from the peroration of his arraignment of Mark Antony, to
which reference has. already been made.
Are you in any respect to be compared with Caesar?
He had capacity, sense, memory, learning, foresight, re¬
flection, and spirit. His warlike achievements, though
ruinous to his country, were glorious to himself. Through
inexpressible toil, through numberless dangers, he laid a
scheme for a long possession of power. What he projected
he perfected. With presents, with shows, with largesses,
with entertainments, he soothed the thoughtless vulgar: by
his liberality he obliged his friends; and by a semblance of
clemency, his enemies. In short, partly by fear and partly
by patience, he made the habit of slavery tolerable to a free
State.
The lust of power, I own, was, indeed, common to you
both; though in no other respect can you admit of a com¬
parison with him. But from all the misfortunes inflicted
by him upon his country, this advantage accrued, that the
people of Rome have learned how far any man is to be
believed; they have learned whom to trust, and of whom to
beware. But this gives you no concern; nor do you con¬
ceive what it is for brave men to have now learned how
amiable in itself, how agreeable in the consequences, and
how glorious it is in report, to kill a tyrant. If they could
not bear with a Csesar, will they endure Antony?
Believe me, the world will henceforward eagerly rush
upon such an enterprise ; nor will they need ever wait long
for an opportunity. Cast a considering eye, Mark Antony,
at last upon your country. Reflect not on those with whom
you live, but on those from whom you are descended. How*
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ever you may stand with me, yet reconcile yourself to your
country. But of this you are the best judge. One thing
on my own part I will here openly declare : In my youth I
defended my country; in my old age I will not abandon her.
The sword of Catiline I despised, and never shall I dread
yours. With pleasure should I expose my person if by
my blood the liberties of Borne could be immediately re¬
covered, and the people of Rome delivered from that pain¬
ful burden they have been so long in labour of. For if
almost twenty. years ago, in this very temple, I declared
that no death could be untimely to me when Consular;
mueh more truly can I declare the same now, when I am an
aged man. To me. Conscript Fathers, death is even desir¬
able, now I have performed all the duties which my station
and character required. Two things only I have now to
wish for: The first (than which the gods themselves can
bestow nothing on me more grateful) is, that I may leave
Rome in the enjoyment of her liberty; the other, that the
reward of every man be proportioned to what he has de¬
served of his country.
It is little wonder that after listening to this splendid elo-
quenee, the ruthless lover of Cleopatra should have determined
that Cicero should live no longer and denounce no more.
§ 16
Caesar and the Historians
Of all Latin books, Cffisar’s Commentaries are most widely
read in the modern world. No schoolboy can escape them. They
were composed from the dispatches that he sent to the Senate
at Rome during his campaigns in Gaul, and they may be com¬
pared to the dispatches written by a modern general with a
literary gift like Sir Ian Hamilton. One outstanding charac¬
teristic of C^sar was his constant care for the welfare of the
common soldier.
The two most famous of the Roman historians were Livy,
Greece and Rome
231 ■
who was horn in 59 b.c. and died in a.d. 17, and Tacitus, who
lived in the first years of the Christian era. To Livy we owe
the stories of the early Roman kings, of the foundation of the
Roman Republic, and of the painful and sanguinary struggles
by which the troubled community of Rome and its surrounding
towns and villages became the controller of the Mediterranean.
The parts of Livy which are generally read in the course of the
ordinary English education are those which deal with the great
conflict between Rome and the Semitic power on the other
side of the Mediterranean at Carthage. The Carthaginians,
scattered as they were by conquest, left no surviving literature,
though they themselves probably Survive as the bulk of the
Jewish races dispersed over the world to-day. The story as told
in Livy is, therefore, a one-sided story, but it is of interest be¬
cause for the first time in classical literature one can trace an
author’s writing to its source. Most of his material he owes to
an historian called Polybius, who wrote in Greek and who, living
nearer than Livy to the time of the Punic wars, was able to
obtain details which gave his account an importance not
possessed by that of Livy himself.
The works of Tacitus deal with events either within the
historian’s own recollection or sufficiently near for him to have
had trustworthy sources of information. They show a capacity
for the study of character, great narrative gifts of compression
and point, and a desire to use history as a means of instruction
and warning to the politicians and peoples of the future. The
strength of the writing of Tacitus lies in the irony and brilliance
of his own comments on the emperors and statesmen with whom
he deals. Possessing a mental temperament which was naturally
bitter and biting, he forged a Latin style for his own use utterly
unlike that of any other Roman prose-writer. His pages over¬
flow with epigram and with the efficient exercise of a kind of
humourless wit.
Tacitus has other claims than those of his annals and his-
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tories for the attention of students of literature. He was the
first Roman writer, or at any rate the first whose works have
remained, to write a biography, and his life of his uncle, the
Roman General Agricola, who spent most of his active military
career in Britain, is the earliest piece of biographical writing
we have. Nothing is more strange in the history of literature
than the fact that the interest in the writing of men’s lives ap¬
pears late in every country — except among the Jews. The
fashion, however, soon spread in Rome. There are Suetonius’s
Lives of the Caesars^ which filled in many tragic and sensational
details in the more sober stories of their reigns as told by Tacitus.
Above all, there is the work of Plutarch, who, though writing in
Greek, wrote under the Roman Empire.
§ 17
The Last Phase
The Golden Age of Latin literature, the first half of which
coincided with the last years of the Republic, continued through
the reign of Augustus down to about a.d. 17. The Silver Age
came to an end with the death of Juvenal in a.d. 120. In ad¬
dition to Tacitus and Juvenal the writers of the Silver Age
included Suetonius, to whom passing reference has already been
made; Seneca, the philosopher and tutor of Nero; and Martial,
the epigrammist, who was described by a contemporary as “a
man of talent, acuteness, and spirit, with plenty of wit and gall,
and sincere as he was witty.”
With the decadence of the Roman Empire came the de¬
cadence of Latin literature. The writing of poetry ceased, and
the history of classical literature comes to an end with The
Golden Ass of Lucius Apuleius, who was born in Africa, and
after a grand tour of the Roman world married a rich widow,
and was thus able to devote himself to literature. The Golden
Ass is among the earliest novels ever written. It is a fictional
Greece and Rome
233
autobiography in which the author describes how he was tried
and condemned for the murder of three leathern bottles. He
was brought back to life by a sorceress, whom he wished to fol¬
low in the shape of a bird, but owing to some mistake he was
transformed instead into an ass. In his search for the rose-leaves
that alone could give him back his human form, he had many
strange adventures. He was bullied by his own horse and beaten
by his own groom. He heard exactly what his friends thought
of him, and had other fantastic experiences. The whole thing is
amazingly interesting and often licentious. Boccaccio, Cer¬
vantes, and Le Sage borrowed incidents from The Golden Ass,
and it was translated into English by Willian Adlington in
1566.
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius was almost the last
literary achievement of the Roman Empire. Marcus Aurelius
was a Roman emperor, his rule starting in a.d. 161, but it is
interesting to note that he wrote in Greek. He was a man of
noble character, intent on living a good life and fulfilling his
obligations to his people. There were three persecutions of the
Christians during his reign, but it must be remembered that
in the Roman Empire of the second century the Christians were
regarded with exactly the same popular dislike as the Jews were
regarded in Tsarist Russia. The power of the Emperor was
limited ; he was always fearful of exciting widespread public dis¬
approval, and, moreover, it is certain that Marcus Aurelius knew
nothing of Christian ethics and doctrines. To him the Christians
were merely enemies of the people.
The Meditations are a record of the Emperor’s daily reflec¬
tions on life and the nature of man, and are a perfect expression
of Stoic philosophy. This philosophy is similar to that of
Epictetus, a Greek slave belonging to one of Nero’s courtiers,
lame, in weak health, his life spent in poverty and obscurity.
Slave and Emperor agreed in insisting that Virtue was its own
reward, that man was helpless in the hands of God, and that what-
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ever God did was right. The teaching of the Meditations is
summarised in the following text from Epictetus :
Remember that you are an actor in a drama, of such a
kind as the author pleases to make- it. If short, of a short
one; if long, of a long one. If it be his pleasure you should
act a poor man, a cripple, a governor, or a private person,
see that you act it naturally. For this is your business, to
act well the character assigned you; to choose it, is another’s.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following is a list of valuable books for the student of literature and
culture of Ancient Greece and Rome.
F. B. Jevons, A History of Greek Literature.
Sir Richard Jebb, Primer of Greek Literature.
Gilbert Murray, Ancient Greek Literature, Euripides and His Age, and
The Plays of Euripides.
W. Warde-Fowler, Rome.
J. C. Stobart, The Glory that was Greece and The Grandeur that was
Rome.
Prof. A. S. Wilkins’s Roman Literature.
Translations of most of the important Greek and Latin authors are
accessible in such series as the Loeb Classical Library, the Everyman’s Library,
the World’s Classics, and Bohn’s Library.
The Loeb Classical Library, of which many volumes are now ready, will
ultimately include all the classical writers of importance. Every volume in this
series contains the Greek or Latin text with English translation on opposite
pages.
Sir R. C. Jebb’s English Prose Translation of the Plays of Sophocles.
Plato’s Republic and The Trial and Death of Socrates.
The Pocket Horace (the Latin Text with Conington’s translation on op¬
posite pages), is published complete in one volume, or in two separate volumes.
The Odes and The Satires, Epistles, etc.
Translations from Horace, by Sir Stephen E. De Vere, Bart.
The Works of Horace, 2 vols., translated into English verse, with a life and
notes by Sir Theodore Martin.
Prof. W. y. Sellar’s Virgil^ and his Horace and the Elegiac Poets,
VIII
THE MIDDLE AGES
/
\
S35
THE MIDDLE AGES
§ 1
IN DARKEST EUROPE
The Middle Ages is the name commonly given to that
period of European history that lasted from the sack
and capture of Rome in a.d. 410, by the Visigoths
under Alaric, to the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in
1453. Even before the passing of the Roman Empire of the
West, there had been for over two hundred years a period of
stagnation in which little, if any, literature was- produced. Rome
was, for years, fighting a losing battle against the barbarian
hordes who had crossed the old imperial frontier of the Rhine and
the Danube, the most terrible of these hordes being the Huns
under the leadership of Attila. The whole fabric of Roman
civilisation was gradually overwhelmed by the armies of the
ignorant, and was apparently, but only apparently, lost for ever.
The Gradual Creation of Nationalities
The new masters of the West cared nothing for culture, and
for the most part they could neither read nor write. In the cen¬
turies that followed, Europe saw the gradual creation of na¬
tionalities and distinctive national life, by the amalgamation of
races, and after persistent struggles between rival kings and
237
238
The Outline of Literature
chieftains. England was invaded by Angles and Saxons, by
Danes, and by Normans, who although they came from France
were the descendants of Scandinavian pirates. France was over¬
run by Franks, a Teuton people, and by Normans; and the
Norman knights established their rule as far south as the island of
Sicily.
For a thousand years Europe was the scene of constant
war, pestilence, and famine, the sole protection that the common
people had against the reckless and ruthless tyranny of barons
and overlords being the steadily increasing power of the Church.
In such a time of unexampled turmoil it was impossible for any
literature to be produced. The learning that had been born in
Greece and nurtured in Rome was neglected and despised by
the rude fighting chieftains, but the great books produced by the
ancient world were not entirely lost. Copies were carefully pre¬
served and recopied in the monasteries of the Benedictine monks,
who alone cherished the remains of Roman civilisation. St.
Benedict was born in 480, and was one of the brilliant lights of
the Dark Ages. The monks who obeyed his rule were ordered
to read and study. Longfellow says of St. Benedict in his
“Monte Cassino”:
He founded here his Convent and his Rule
Of prayer and work, and counted work as prayer;
The pen became a clarion, and his school
Flamed like a beacon in the midnight air.
In Ireland and certain parts of England, countries which suf¬
fered less than the continent of Europe from the mediaeval rav¬
ages, the old learning survived when it was practically lost
everywhere else — everywhere else in Europe, that is to say,
except in Spain, which was invaded by the Arabs in 709, and
remained for nearly eight hundred years wholly or partially
under Moslem rule. The Arabs had come into contact with
Greek culture when they overran Egypt, and while Christian
The Middle Ages
239
Europe was wrapped in ignorance they established schools and
academies at Damascus, Bagdad, Cairo, and Cordova in Spain,
where Aristotle, Plato, and Euclid were studied side by side with
the Koran. In the latter half of the Middle Ages the French or
English scholar eager for real knowledge made his way to Cor¬
dova, Toledo, or Seville to learn from Jewish or Moorish pro¬
fessors, and it is said that in the thirteenth century St. Thomas
Aquinas was taught Greek and enabled to read Aristotle by a
Moor from one of the Spanish universities. In the last three
years of his life the “angelic Doctor,” as Aquinas was styled,
wrote his Summa Theologica, which is still accepted as the final
authoritative exposition of the Roman doctrine. A tremendous
and enduring masterpiece of the human mind, it is to Christian
philosophy what Dante’s vast poem is to Christian poetry!
There were beacon lights even in the darkest times : individual
scholars like the Venerable Bede, a monk of Northumberland, who
wrote a history of the Anglo-Saxons in the eighth century, and
great popular movements like the Crusades. The soul of Europe
began to awaken when Peter the Hermit preached the First
Crusade in France and Germany, and “the common people
heard him gladly.” The Dark Ages, indeed, came to an end
long before the close of the Middle Ages. In the thirteenth cen¬
tury Roger Bacon, a Franciscan monk, of Oxford, urged men
not to accept dogma and authority without question and to ex¬
periment for themselves, and in many respects he anticipated the
discoveries of modern times. And in the same century Dante
was born. St. Augustine stands at the threshold of the Middle
Ages, which are dominated at their close by the sublime figure
of the great Italian poet.
St. Jerome
St. Jerome, a contemporary of St. Augustine, was the great¬
est Christian scholar during the last years of the Roman Empire.
St. Jerome, indeed, was a scholar before he was a Christian. He
240
The Outline of Literature
was familiar with the classic writers, and the style of the Scrip¬
tures seemed to him rough and uncouth. Christ reproached him
in a dream for preferring to be a Ciceronian rather than a Chris¬
tian, and he resolved to devote the rest of his life to the study of
the sacred books. The result was his famous translation of the
Bible into Latin. With the help of Jewish scholars he trans¬
lated the Old Testament from the Hebrew. He translated part
of the Apocrypha from Chaldee and the New Testament, of
course, from Greek. St. Jerome’s version, known as the Vul¬
gate, is still to the Roman Catholic Church the authorised ver¬
sion of the Scriptures, though it was considerably changed in
later ages. St. Jerome died in 420. He was a voluminous
writer and a man of most difficult temper, “always preferring
an opinion to a friend.”
§ 2
ST. AUGUSTINE
St. Augustine was born in 354. The capture of Rome by
Alaric in 410 inspired his The City of God, in which he declared:
“The greatest city of the world has fallen in ruin, but the City
of God abideth for ever.” St. Augustine lives in literary history
mainly as the author of the Confessions, which have a human
interest equal to that of the self-revelations of Bunyan and
Rousseau. St. Augustine was born at a village in North Africa.
His father was a pagan, his mother, Monica, a devout Christian.
He was educated at Carthage, and. afterwards became a pro¬
fessor of literature and oratory. He lived the ordinary life of
a well-educated and well-to-do young man of the times, after¬
wards recalling the sins of his youth with the same bitter exag¬
geration that one finds in Bunyan’s Grace Abounding. For
years he tried to find rest and explanation in the various ancient
philosophical systems, finally becoming a convert to Christianity
in Milan, where he had been appointed to the chair of rhetoric.
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ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT. A POPE IN CONSISTORY. (Early fourteenth century.)
A beautiful example of a monkish mediaeval manuscript. In the centuries when art and literature were almost dead, books were copied
with fine embellishments in the scriptoriums of the monasteries.
St. Augustine was born in Africa in 354. In his youth learned in Pagan philosophy, he became the most authoritative of the Fathers
of the Church. This picture reveals a vision of the heavenly stranger, more wonderful than all the beauties of the earth.
Photo: W. A. Mansell (s’ Co.
“the vision of ST. AUGUSTINE,” BY GAROFALO
National Gallery, London.
The Middle Ages
mi
His mother had come from Africa to join him, and after his
baptism they started to return to Africa, Augustine intending
to lead a life of ascetic devotion. They stayed for a night or
two at Ostia, the port of Rome, and here Monica fell ill and died.
The relations between mother and son have remained a
treasure of the Church. Augustine wrote of his mother’s
“slavery” to him, declaring that she was “twice my mother: in
the flesh that I might be born into earthly light, in heart that I
might be born into light eternal.” After his mother’s death,
St. Augustine stayed for a year in Rome, and then returned
home, soon to be appointed Bishop of Hippo.
He was the most voluminous writer of his time, being the
author, it is said, of no fewer than 230 books, in addition to
innumerable homilies.
A Voluminous Writer
Augustine was an artist as well as a saint. He loved
beauty, he joyed in music, and, indeed, he frequently accuses
himself of being too much affected by sesthetic pleasure. His
Confessions are obviously sincere. Their human value lies in
the fact that they are an unvarnished picture of the inner life
of a very real man. St. Augustine remains the most authorita¬
tive of all the Fathers of the Church, and there is a wider interest
in him for, ascetic though he was, he was also a man. He says :
There were other things which in them did more take
my mind; to talk and jest together, to do kind offices by
turns; to read together honied books; to play the fool or
he earnest together; to dissent at times without discontent,
as a man might with his own self ; and even with the seldom-
ness of these dissentings, to season our more frequent
consentings; sometimes to teach, and sometimes learn; long
for the absent with impatience; and welcome the coming
with joy. These and the like expressions, proceeding out
of the hearts of those that loved and were loved again, by
VOL. I — 16
24^ The Outline of Literature
the countenance, the tongue, the eyes, and a thousand pleas¬
ing gestures, were so much fuel to melt our souls together,
and out of many make hut one.
This is it that is loved in friends; and so loved, that a
man’s conscience condemns itself, if he love not him that
loves him again, or love not again him that loves him, look¬
ing for nothing from his person, but indications of his love.
Hence that mourning, if one die, and darkening of sor¬
rows, that steeping of the heart in tears, all sweetness turned
to bitterness; and upon the loss of life of the dying, the
death of the living.
The Confessions abound in vivid imagery, and with phrases
that have passed into all European languages, such as, “the
biter bit,” and “life of my life.”
The literary tradition founded in the Church by St. Je¬
rome and St. Augustine was never quite lost. Reference has
already been made to St. Benedict, who, a hundred years after
St. Augustine’s death, taught his monks to study and to pre¬
serve and copy the ancient manuscripts. St. Colmnha, the
Apostle of Caledonia, was another literary monk of the early
Middle Ages. In his Books and their Makers in the Middle
Ages, Mr. George Haven Putnam says:
According to one of the stories, Columba journeyed
to Ossory in the south-west to visit a holy and very learned
recluse, a doctor of laws and philosophy, named Longarad.
Columba asked leave to examine the doctor’s books, and
when the old man refused, the monk burst out in an im¬
precation: “May thy books no longer do thee any good,
neither to them who come after thee, since thou takest
occasion by them to show thine inhospitality.” The curse
was heard and after Longarad died, his books became un¬
intelligible. An author of the sixth century says that the
books still existed, but that no man could read them.
Another story speaks of Columba’s undertaking, while
visiting his ancient master Finnian, to make a clandestine
and hurried copy of the abbot’s Psalter. He shut himself
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The Middle Ages
243
up at night in the church where the Psalter was deposited,
and the light needed for his nocturnal work radiated from
his left hand while he wrote with the right. A curious
wanderer, passing the church, was attracted by the singular
light, and looked in through the keyhole, and while his face
was pressed against the door his eye was suddenly torn
out by a crane which was roosting in the church. The
wanderer went with his story to the abbot, and Finnian,
indignant at what he considered to be a theft, claimed from
Columba the copy which the monk had prepared, contend¬
ing that a copy made without permission ought to belong to
the owner of the original, on the ground that the trans¬
cript is the offspring of the original work. As far as I
have been able to ascertain, this is the first instance which
occurs in the history of European literature of a conten¬
tion for copyright. Columba refused to give up his manu¬
script, and the question was referred to King Diarmid or
Dermott, in the palace of Tara. The King’s judgment
was given in a rustic phrase which has passed into a proverb
in Ireland: “To every cow her calf, and consequently to
every book its copy.”
Despite the enthusiasm of scholarly churchmen, after the
death of St. Augustine there was no outstanding event in liter¬
ary history for seven hundred years.
§ 3
THE NIBELUNGEN LIED
The German “Iliad” — the Nibelungen Lied — is the treas¬
ure-house in which Wagner found the stories of his music-
dramas.
A twelfth-century German poet, whose name is unknown,
gathered together the primitive hero-stories of the Northern
peoples, sung round camp fires probably long before the art of
writing was known, just as centuries before Homer had col¬
lected the myths and legends of the ancient Greeks. The un-
244
The Outline of Literature
named poet called his stories the Nibelungen Lied, the Songs of
the People of Darkness, and these folk-stories are still regarded
by the Germans with the same veneration as the Greeks had for
the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey.” Just as the Homeric stories
were the subjects of the great Greek tragedies, so the Nibelungen
Lied finds a permanent place in modern art in Wagner’s music-
dramas.
The story of the Nibelimgen Lied is told in thirty-nine
adventures. It begins with the coming of the hero Siegfried,
the son of Siegmund, King of the Ketherland, to Worms to
woo the peerless beauty Kriemhild, the sister of King Gunther
of Burgundy.
The Hero Siegfried
Now this Siegfried had had strange adventures in his youth,
when he had been apprenticed to a sword-smith. He had slain
a dragon and bathed in its blood, so that he was completely in¬
vulnerable, save where a leaf of the linden had stuck between
his shoulders during the bathing. This was his Achilles heel.
He had also acquired the sword Balmung, of wondrous potency,
a Tarnkappe or cloak of invisibility which also gave him the
strength of twelve strong men, a divining rod which gave him
power over everyone, and, lastly, the Hoard of the Nibelungs
(a mythical mass of gold and precious stones) and, with it, the
overlordship of the Dwarf Alberich and all his myrmidons.
So when King Gunther decides to voyage to Isenland and
win for himself, if that may be, the beautiful but wayward
Queen Brunhild, Siegfried goes with him in the guise of his
vassal on the understanding that he is to have Kriemhild to
wife if he helps Gunther to achieve the perilous adventure.
This Brunhild, as we know from the more primitive form of
the Siegfried story used in Wagner’s operas, is really a Valkyr
or warrior, whose vocation it is to lead the pagan heroes from
their last battlefield into Valhalla, and she could only give her-
“the ring of the nibelungs.” the burial of the dead
To avenge her husband’s death, Kriemhild, Siegfried’s widow, arranges the slaughter of Brunhild’s followers.
Carlyle has written: “Host after host, as they enter that huge vaulted Hall, perish in conflict with the doomed Nibel ungen; and
ever after the terrific uproar, ensues a still more terrific silence. All night and through morning it lasts. They throw the dead from the
windows; blood runs like water; the Hall is set fire to, they quench it with blood, their own burning thirst they slake with blood.’’
Photo: Anderson.
DANTE
National Museum, Naples.
The greatest of all Italian poets, the author of The Divine Comedy,
“a story of immortal joys and sorrows,’’ was born in Florence in 1265
and died in exile in 1321.
Queen Brunhild was one of the Valkyr women, whose business it was to lead dead heroes from their last battlefield into Valhalla. If a
Valkyr gave herself in love she lost her immortality.
Photo: Braun.
“BRUNHILD AND SIEGMUND,” BY J. WAGREZ
Brunhild, so runs one of the Norse legends, was sent by the god Odin to
summon Siegmund from the side of the beautiful Sieglinde, whom he loved.
The Middle Ages
245
self in love to a mortal at the cost of her immortality. In the
later, milder version presented in the “lay,” she is a maiden of
flesh-and-blood with certain preternatural gifts, and he who
would wed her must beat her at hurling the spear, leaping, and
throwing the stone.
With the help of Siegfried in his cloak of invisibility and
with his strength multiplied by wearing it, Gunther — “he only
acting the gestures” — vanquishes the wonder-maiden, and she
goes to Worms, where the two bridal-feasts are celebrated with
astounding splendour. But on her wedding-night the terrible
Brunhild, thanks to her magical maiden-might (last relic of
her primitive godhead!), ties Gunther hard and fast, hand and
foot, in her girdle, and hangs him up on a nail in the wall. Sieg¬
fried again helps Gunther, and once Brunhild ceases to be a
maiden all her strength is gone; Siegfried takes as his prize the
fierce virgin’s ring and girdle, which he presents to his own
loving wife. Years of high enterprise and joyous living (with
the help of the Hoard of the Nibelungs) go by, and there is only
one little cause of trouble — Queen Brunhild’s notion that Sieg¬
fried is only Gunther’s vassal, and that she is Queen Kriem-
hild’s superior. In the Fourteenth Adventure — “How the two
Queens rated one another” — the fatal secret is revealed. Sieg¬
fried, with his wife and his kingly father, with a great train of
Nibenlungen Ritters and Netherlanders, comes to a feast at
Worms, and all goes well till Brunhild and Kriemhild take to
arguing about the relative merits of their husbands, which ends
in the former’s assertion at the door of the Minister, when she
overtakes the latter with her far more magnificent retinue, that
“before King’s wife shall vassal’s wife never go.” Then the
secret came out like a lightning flash:
Then said the fair Kriemhilde. Right angry was her mood :
“Couldst thou but hold thy peace It was surely for thy good;
Thyself has all polluted With shame thy fair bodye.
How can a concubine By right a king’s wife be?”
246
The Outline of Literature
In proof of which she produces the ring and the girdle, and Brun¬
hild bursts into tears, afterwards deeply pondering how she can
take vengeance for so black an injury to her pride.
She persuades the grim warrior Hagen to be the minister of
her revenge. He wheedles from Kriemhild the secret that Sieg¬
fried has the one vulnerable spot between his shoulders, and the
hero is treacherously killed while he is hunting. Then, that her
humiliation may be complete, Kriemhild is persuaded to send
for the Nibelungen Hoard, which is at once stolen by Hagen,
and Siegfried’s widow is left penniless and sorrowful for thirteen
years. Then King Etzel sends from his far country to ask for
her hand, and she accepts him, hoping that a new marriage may
give her the power to hit back at her rival, Brunhild.
Years pass again and Kriemhild sends an invitation to
Gunther and his champions to visit her husband’s court. Hagen
at onee realises the reason for the invitation, and tries to per¬
suade the king not to make the journey, but he is overruled.
Weird omens meet them on the way which Hagen, now grown
old and reckless, treats with the scorn of desperation — “mixed
was his hair with the grey colour, his limbs massy, and menacing
his look” — but he has no fear: with his staunch companion Vol-
ker, with his “steel fiddle-bow,” he is confident he can still beat
strange music from the helms of his foes.
King Etzel, who knows nothing of Kriemhild’s plan of
vengeance, receives the strangers with joy and hospitality, but
the trouble starts as soon as they appear at the royal feast.
Hagen’s swift reply to Kriemhild’s provoeation is to hew off the
head of her and Etzel’s son, making it bound into his mother’s
lap. Kriemhild was like a fury, and a great fight begins. Carlyle
has described it in vivid sentences that are all his own:
Host after host, as they enter that huge vaulted Hall,
perish in conflict with the doomed Nibelungen; and ever
after the terrific uproar, ensues a still more terrific silence.
All night and through morning it lasts. They throw the
The Middle Ages
247
dead from the windows; blood runs like water; the Hall is
set fire to, they quench it with blood, their own burning
thirst they slake with blood. It is a tumult like the Crack
of Doom, a thousand-voiced, wild-stunning hubbub; and
frightful like a Trump of Doom, the Sword-fiddlebow of
Volker, who guards the door, makes music to that death-
dance. Nor are traits of heroism wanting, and thrilling
tones of pity and love; as in that act of Rudiger, Etzel’s
and Kriemhild’s champion, who, bound by oath, “lays his
soul in God’s hand,” and enters that Golgotha to die
fighting against his friends; yet first changes shields with
Hagen, whose own, also given him by Rudiger in a far
other hour, had been shattered in the fight. “When he so
lovingly bade him give the shield, there were eyes enough
red with hot tears; it was the last gift which Rudiger of
Becharen gave to any Recke. As grim as Hagen was, and
as hard of mind, he wept at the gift which this hero good,
so near his last times, had given him; full many a noble
Ritter began to weep.”
At last Volker is slain; they are all slain, save only
Hagen and Gunther, faint and wounded, yet still uncon¬
quered among the bodies of the dead. Dietrich the wary,
though strong and invincible, whose Recken too, except old
Hildebrand, he now finds are all killed, though he had
charged them strictly not to mix in the quarrel, at last
arms himself to finish it. He subdues the two wearied
Nibelungen, binds them, delivers them to Chriemhild; “and
Herr Dietrich went away with weeping eyes, worthily from
the heroes.” These never saw each other more. Chriem-
hild demands of Hagen, Where the Nibelungen Hoard is?
But he answers her, that he has sworn never to disclose it
while any of her brothers live. “I bring it to an end,” said
the infuriated woman ; orders her brother’s head to be struck
off, and holds it up to Hagen. “Thou hast known it now
according to thy will,” said Hagen; “of the Hoard know-
eth none but God and I; from thee, she-devil {valen-
dinne), shall it for ever be hid.” She kills him with his
own sword, once her husband’s; and is herself struck dead
by Hildebrand, indignant at the woe she has wrought;
248
The Outline of Literature
King Etzel, there present, not opposing the deed. Where¬
upon the curtain drops over that wild scene; the full
highly honoured were lying dead ; the people all had sorrow
and lamentation; in grief had the king s feast ended, as all
love is wont to do.”
Nothing is clear or coherent in the Nibelungen Lied. It
is an antique tapestry shaken by the wind. But its stark heroes,
its fierce queens, are bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. As
Carlyle said: “The city of Worms, had we a right imagination,
ought to be as venerable to us moderns as any Thebes or Troy
was to the ancients.”
§ 4
THE TROUBADOURS
During the Moorish occupation, there grew up in Spain a
life of gaiety and courtesy for courtesy’s sake, and the lute and
mandolin music, which was its joyous accompaniment, crossed
the Pyrenees, reaching Provence and Languedoc first of all, then
Sicily and Italy, and finally filling all Western Europe with
wandering Troubadours and Minnesingers. The roving minstrel
who sang in the vernacular and besought his hearers to listen to
a tale, “which is merryr than the nightengale,” was the pionee:^
of all the romantic and sentimental literature of modern Europe.
Some of the Troubadours were nobles and princes, among
them our own Richard Coeur-de-Lion, who wrote verses in both
the langue d’oc and the langue d’ceil, the two dialects of mediaeval
French, and who has left one poem of genuine beauty, written
while he was imprisoned by the Duke of Austria on his way home
from the crusade.
Fantastic Legends
The reign of the Troubadours lasted about two centuries;
it nearly coincides with the eleventh and twelfth centuries. A
host of fantastic legends is recalled by the names of the Trouha-
The Middle Ages
249
dours; their passion scaled the heights of Southern society, lofty
princesses accepting their hearts as oblations to beauty. Some
of them were gallant Crusaders; many became monks when the
love-time was over for ever. Perhaps the most romantic figure
of all was Jaufre Rudel, whose soul ever turned to Melisande,
the Lady of Tripoli, praised alike for her beauty, her courtesy,
and her charity. Both Browning and Swinburne have been
inspired by his story; the latter, in whose poems the spirit of the
Troubadours lives again so often, has told the tale of his soul’s
glad passing:
Died, praising God for His gift and grace:
For she bowed down to him weeping and said
“Live” ; and her tears were shed on his face
Or ever the life in his face was shed.
The sharp tears fell through her hair, and stung
Once, and her close lips touched him and clung
Once, and grew one with his lips for a space ;
And so drew back, and the man was dead.
It must not be forgotten that the Troubadour, even if he
came of lowly origin, was always a lordly person — ennobled by
his poetical gift beyond every ungifted noble. Writers of modern
romance have confused him with the J ogller or musician who ac¬
companied his recitation with lute or mandolin. This accompanist
was of lower rank, being merely a successor of the merry-man
who went from castle to castle to play dance-music, show acro¬
batic feats, or even exhibit performing animals.
The Trouveres, or court poets, who flourished in Northern
and Central France during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
are a minor poetic influence in comparison with the Troubadours.
They were not lovers singing to their lady-loves at the height of
their age; no legends have gathered about their names, and they
pass like phantoms across the history of a land more interested
in politics and war than in poetry. They were pedants of a
sentimentality which seems cold and remote from life in com¬
parison with the passion of the Southern singers. Nevertheless
250
The Outline of Literature
this Northern cult was one of the minor influences which reflned
conduct and enforced the ideal of chivalry. They, like the
Troubadours, were pioneers of literature.
The most famous of the romances in verse that were recited
by the wandering mediseval minstrels is The Song of Roland^
in which an unknown eleventh-century poet tells, with flne dra¬
matic simplicity, the story of a great fight in a pass in the
Pyrenees between the army of Charlemagne and the Saracens of
Saragossa. Charlemagne, with his main army, deceived by the
Saracens, has crossed the mountains back into France, leaving
Roland with the rear-guard to hold the pass. Roland is treacher¬
ously attacked by the Saracens, aided by recreant Christian
knights, and after a mighty struggle he is killed, with the whole
of his army.
Among French stories of a rather later time, the most in¬
teresting is Aucassin and Nicolette, which belongs to the thir¬
teenth century. It is a love romance written partly in prose and
partly in verse.
§ 5
DANTE
There is no more magnificent personage in the whole
pageant of literature than Dante — the tall, spare man with his
long, grey robes, his red head-dress with the laurel leaves about
it, and his sorrowful aquiline face, whose figure is as familiar to
us as the figure of Shakespeare himself. We know little of the
personal life of Shakespeare, and that little can hardly be called
romantic, but we have the details of the life of Dante, and he is
the hero of one of the strangest and most beautiful love stories in
the world.
Dante and Beatrice
Dante was born in Florence in 1265. When he was nine he
met Beatrice, a child of the same age. The children did not
Photo: W. A. Mansell fif Co.
“DANTE AND VIRGIL," BY DELACROIX
The Louvre, Paris.
Dante and Virgil are here shown crossing the Styx — "the awful marsh in which the Sullen writhe like eels, and in whose dark waters
fight the Spirits of the Angry.”
“dANTE’s dream,” by ROSSETTI
Reproduced by permission of the Corporation of Liverpool.
Beatrice, living or dead, was always in the poet’s mind.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
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251
speak, but the poet declares that “from that day forward love
quite governed my soul.” Beatrice remained for him for ever
“the glorious lady of my mind,” and years afterwards he recalled
that on the most wonderful day of his life she wore a dress “of
a most noble colour, a subdued and goodly crimson, girdled and
adorned in such sort as best suited with her very tender age.”
Nine years passed and the poet met Beatrice again, dressed in
white, and walking with two older ladies in the streets of Flor¬
ence. Again they did not speak, but “she turned her eyes thither
where I stood sorely abashed, and by her unspeakable courtesy
she saluted me with so virtuous a bearing that I seemed then
and there to behold the very limits of blessedness.” He only saw
Beatrice once more. How pathetic and how ironic it is that Bea¬
trice never knew of the deep passion that she had inspired in the
greatest heart that ever beat in Italy, a passion immortalised in
one of the supreme masterpieces of literature.
Beatrice married, and died when she was thirty-five. Writ¬
ing after her death Dante said : “When I had lost the first delight
of my soul (that is, Beatrice) I remained so pierced with sadness
that no comfort availed me anything.” The story of his passion
is told in his first notable Italian book. La Vita Nuova — a philo¬
sophical treatise interspersed with sonnets. The following is
Rossetti’s translation of one of the most beautiful of these son¬
nets, in which Dante explains the reason of his lady’s early
death :
Such an exceeding glory went up hence
That it woke wonder in the Eternal Sire,
Until a sweet desire
Entered Him for that lovely excellence,
So that He bade her to Himself aspire ;
Counting this weary and most evil place
Unworthy of a thing so full of grace.^
After the Vita Nuova, except for a series of lyrics Dante
wrote nothing in his own language until he began The Divine
^ Vita Nuova (Rossetti’s translation).
252
The Outline of Literature
Comedy. The Latin works which occupied the interregnum
need not concern us. The great work of his life was his tribute
to the woman whom he loved. Dante’s Divine Comedy was
written for the dead Beatrice. In the last chapter of the Vita
Nuova he says:
If it be His pleasure through whom is the life of all
things that my life continue with me a few years, it is my
hope that I shall yet write concerning her what hath not
before been written of any woman. After which may it
seem good unto Him who is the master of grace that my
spirit should go hence to behold the glory of its lady, to
wit, Beatrice.
Two years after the death of Beatrice, the poet married a
lady of noble birth, whose fidelity and strength of character in
times of trouble were outweighed by a violence of temper which
became not the least of the troubles of a tragically troubled and
disappointed life. It is supposed that the poet was referring to
his own wife, Gemma, when he wrote in the sixteenth canto of the
“Inferno”:
Me, my wife
Or savage temper, more than aught beside,
Hath to this evil brought.
The Life of Dante
It is impossible to understand Dante without some idea of
the setting of his life. He is the bridge between the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance. He was born in the medigeval golden age,
having as contemporaries Roger Bacon, St. Thomas Aquinas,
and St. Louis of France. Giotto, the great mediseval painter,
was his companion and friend. The fact that Dante was the first
great Italian writer who wrote in his own language has caused
him to be regarded as the forerunner of the Renaissance. But
The Divine Comedy is the incarnation of all that is most splendid
The Middle Ages
253
and wonderful in mediaeval Catholicism. In it the reader finds
the quintessence of the philosophy, theology, and the chivalry of
the Middle Ages. The scheme of the poem is even more grand¬
iose than the scheme of the “Iliad” ; the nobility of its conception
and the amazing variety of its characters have no parallel in
literature. The wealth of its imagery may be realised in the Eng¬
lish translations, but, alas! the beauty of the verse is naturally
lost. Just as Shakespeare has no peer among later English
writers, so Dante stands supreme in the literature of Italy. But
he is far more than an Italian figure ; he belongs to Europe, and
he and his work are the crown and the climax of the Middle Ages.
Unfortunately for his happiness, while still a young man
Dante became involved in the intrigues of Florentine politics,
in the feud between the two parties, the Guelphs and Ghibellines.
The first were the adherents of the Papal power, and the second
supported the authority of the Emperor, a German prince living
in Vienna, who claimed sovereignty in Italy. It is sufficient to
note that Dante, after facing both ways for some years, espoused
the cause of the Emperor, and that the Guelphs having tri¬
umphed, he was banished from Florence in 1302, and remained
in exile until he died in 1321, wandering from city to city, travel¬
ling certainly as far as Paris, and even, according to tradition, to
Oxford. For the most part he lived unhappily in various Italian
cities, and The Divine Comedy was probably written in Verona
and Ravenna.
Interspersed among the supernatural incidents of The
Divine Comedy there are constant references to events in the
poet’s own life — not only to his one absorbing and inspiring
passion, but also to the political conflicts and feuds in which he
had been concerned.
The Divine Comedy is a description of Heaven, Hell, and
Purgatory. Literally, it is a vision of the state of souls after
death ; allegorically, it is a demonstration of man’s need of spiri¬
tual illumination and guidance.
254
The Outline of Literature
The Inferno
Before we take our way with Dante through the zones of
Hell, there are two things to keep in mind; first, that the “In¬
ferno” is, apart from other things, the greatest adventure-story
m the world; and, secondly, that it is made alive and real with
vivid, graphic details, like those of Robinson Crusoe or Gulliver’s
Travels. To exemplify the kind of thing we mean, let us take a
single instance, as a type of what the reader of the poem meets
at every step — an example which was used by Buskin to illustrate
the shaping power of intense imagination to body forth the forms
of things unknown: “Dante’s Centaur, Chiron, dividing his
beard with his arrow before he can speak, is a thing no mortal
would ever have thought of. But the real living Centaur actually
trotted across Dante’s brain, and he saw him do it.”
Such things, of course, are lost in an epitome. But, even
so, the great sights of the “Inferno” stand out like pictures, and
remain in the mind’s eye, an unforgettable series of stupendous
scenes.
The shape of Hell is that of an enormous pit, like an in¬
verted cone, whose point is at the centre of the earth, while its
sides are occupied by broad steps or ledges, one below the other,
and of course diminishing in size as they descend, the most guilty
sinners being lowest down.
Dante, having lost his way in a gloomy forest, is met by
Virgil, who promises to show him the punishments of Hell. Fol¬
lowing Virgil, he comes to the gate of the Inferno, where, after
having read the dreadful words that are written thereon — “All
hope abandon, ye who enter here” — they both enter. Just within
the entrance comes a dark plain, the vestibule of Hell, in which
are the Spirits of the Selfish and the Idle, the Giddyaimless,
stung by wasps and hornets, and running for ever behind a whirl¬
ing fiag.
Then, crossing the plain, they arrive at the River Acheron,
the Stream of Sorrow. There are the crowds at Charon’s ferry.
“ring of the nibelungs.”
Communication of Siegfried’s secret to Brunhild. Siegfried
was vulnerable between the shoulders, and when Brunhild
learned this secret she was able to contrive his death.
Photo: Fredk. Hollyer.
“ PAOLO AND FRANCESCA,” BY ROSSETTI
Dante meets Paolo and Francesca, with other guilty lovers, in the second
circle of Hell.
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255
staying for waftage,” and the fierce old man with eyes like
wheels of flame, who ferries them across. Dante falls into a
trance of terror from which, being roused by a clap of thunder,
he finds that they have crossed the river. Thence they descend
into Limbo, the first circle of Hell. There he finds the souls of
the great pagans, who, though they lived nobly, were unbaptised.
Homer, Horace, Ovid, welcome Dante as one of themselves.
Coming into the second circle of Hell, Dante at the entrance
beholds Minos, the Infernal J udge, an enormous man-faced dog.
Here he witnesses the punishment of guilty lovers, blown like
cranes upon a mighty wind.
Now ’gin the rueful wailings to be heard.
Now am I come where many a plaining voice
Smites on mine ear. Into a place I came
Where light was silent all. Bellowing there groan’d
A noise, as of a sea in tempest torn
By warring winds. The stormy blast of hell
With restless fury drives the spirits on.
Whirl’d round and dash’d amain with sore annoy.
When they arrive before the ruinous sweep,
There shrieks are heard, there lamentations, moans,
And blasphemies ’gainst the good Power in heaven.
There they saw Semiramis and Cleopatra, and:
There mark’d I Helen, for whose sake so long
The time was fraught with evil; there the great
Achilles, who with love fought to the end.
Paris I saw, and Tristan ; and beside,
A thousand more he show’d me, and by name
Pointed them out, whom love bereaved of life.
Above all, there is Francesca of Rimini and her lover Paolo,
whose story he has made immortal. This story, which she tells
to Dante — how they were surprised and slain together by her
husband, John the Lame, a lord of Rimini — ^makes him faint
with pity.
When he recovers he finds himself in the third circle, where
the gluttons lie in mire under a continual rain of hail, snow, and
256
The Outline of Literature
filthy water, while Cerberus, the gigantic dog, barks, snarls, and
rends them. At the beginning of the fourth circle he sees Plutus,
god of riches, guarding the circle of the spendthrifts and the
misers, who spend their time in rolling mighty crags to crash
against each other ; and further on, the Styx, the awful marsh in
which the Sullen writhe like eels, and in whose dark waters fight
the Spirits of the Angry.
Now seeth thou, son!
The souls of those whom anger overcame.
This too for certain know, that underneath
The water dwells a multitude, whose sighs
Into these bubbles make the surface heave,
As thine eye tells thee wheresoe’r it turn.
Fixed in the slime, they say : “Sad once were we,
In the sweet air made gladsome by the sun.
Carrying a soul and lazy mist within:
Now in these murky settlings are we sad.”
Such dolorous strain they gurgle in their throats,
But word distinct can utter none.
They come at last to the base of a lofty tower, from which
shine two signal-flames; and now they behold Phlegyas, the
ferry-man of the lake, coming with angry speed to convey them
to the other side. Through the grim vapour are seen glowing,
red with fire, the towers and pinnacles of Satan’s City of Dis.
The gates are guarded by a horde of demons; upon the battle¬
ments the blood-stained Furies tear the serpents of their hair,
shrieking for Medusa to turn the pilgrims into stone. A rapt,
disdainful Angel, who speeds dry-footed across the lake, scatters
these monsters from the pathway, and the two poets, entering
the city, find a great plain rough with lidless sepulchres, each
filled with fire and holding the tormented spirit of a heretic in a
red-hot bed. From one of these the proud spirit of Farinata
lifts 'his head, “looking as if he entertained great scorn of Hell.”
Descending into the seventh circle, by a wild chasm of
shattered rocks, they come to the river of blood, in which stand
Rei>roduced by permission of The Medici Society, Ltd., from The Medici Print.
SIR GALAHAD
Galahad is regarded as the Knight of Purity. His principal exploit was the quest of the Holy Grail,
his companions in. the venture being Sir Percevale and Sir Bors. Sir Galahad was permitted to see the
cup out of which Christ drank at the Last Supper. Galahad then asked to be allowed to die, and at his
death the Grail was taken up to Heaven and disappeared from mortal sight.
1
r
' . n
I
• H
i
• * * k \
& ** !
.1
i
The Middle Ages
257
the Tyrants, while troops of Centaurs, with Chiron at their head,
gallop up and down the bank and shoot the Sinners with their
arrows. Still in the seventh circle, they enter the dismal wood of
the Self-murderers, whose spirits have become rough stunted
trees, with poisoned fruit on which feed the Harpies, huge filthy
birds with women’s faces ; while through this dreadful forest other
spirits rush, pursued by hell-hounds. Beyond this wood lies a
naked plain of fiery sand, the region of the Violent, under a slow
eternal shower of flakes of fire.
Journeying along the bank of the river of blood which
crosses the sand, they reach the place where the flood falls in a
cataract into a gulf. Virgil, having thrown. Dante’s girdle into
the abyss, they behold at that signal a monstrous and horrible
figure coming swimming up through the dark air — it is Geryon.
“Lo ! the fell monster with the deadly sting
Who passes mountains, breaks through fenced walls
And firm embattled spears, and with his filth
Taints all the world.” Thus me my guide address’d.
And beckon’d him, that he should come to shore.
Near to the stony causeway’s utmost edge.
Forthwith that image vile of Fraud appear’d.
His head and upper part exposed on land.
But laid not on the shore his bestial train.
His face the semblance of a just man’s wore.
So kind and gracious was its outward cheer ;
The rest was serpent all: two shaggy claws
Reach’d to the arm-pits ; and the back and breast.
And either side, were painted o’er with nodes
And orbits. Colours variegated more
Not Turks nor Tartars e’er on cloth of state
With interchangeable embroidery wove.
Nor spread Arachne o’er her curious loom.
As oft-times a light skiff, moor’d to the shore.
Stands part in water, part upon the land ;
Or, as where dwells the greedy German boor.
The beaver settles, watching for his prey ;
So on the rim, that fenced the sand with rock.
Sat perch’d the fiend of evil. In the void
VOL. I — 17
258
The Outline of Literature
Glancing, his tail upturned its venomous fork,
With sting like scorpions arm’d.
^ Descending on the monster’s back the poets reach the eighth
circle, which is divided into ten gulfs, the place of punishment
for divers kinds of Fraud. In the first are the Seducers, scourged
by horned demons. In the next are the Flatterers, immersed in
filth. Then come the Simonists, set head downwards in deep
narrow holes, with feet that burn like lamps above the level of
the rock. Then the hordes of the False Prophets, whose necks
are twisted round so that they face backwards.
Next comes a dyke of boiling pitch, in which the Spirits of
Embezzlers plunge and dive, watched by black-winged demons
armed with prongs. This is one of the most vivid scenes in the
Inferno. The chief of these hobgoblins is named Barbariccia,
while under him are Graffiacane, Draghignazzo, Farfarello, and
the rest of the foul crew.
As dolphins that, in sign
To mariners, heave high their arched backs.
That thence forewarn’d they may advise to save
Their threaten’d vessel ; so, at intervals.
To ease the pain, his back some sinner show’d.
Then hid more nimbly than the lightning-glance.
E’en as the frogs, that of a watery moat
Stand at the brink, with the jaws only out.
Their feet and of the trunk all else conceal’d.
Thus on each part the sinners stood; but soon
As Barbariccia was at hand, so they
Drew back under the wave. I saw, and yet
My heart doth stagger, one, that waited thus.
As it befalls that oft one frog remains.
While the next springs away : and Graffiacane,
Who of the fiends was nearest, grappling seized
His clotted locks, and dragg’d him sprawling up.
That he appear’d to me an otter.
Observe the brief sharp touch which brings before the eye
the body hauled out of the pitch, black, sleek, and glistening —
Photo: Fredk. HoUyer.
“ PAOLO AND FRANCESCA,” BY ROSSETTI
When Francesca tells Dante the story of her love for Paolo, and how the
lovers were surprised and slain by her husband, John the Lame, a lord of Rimini,
the poet almost faints with pity.
dante's “inferno”
Yet in the abyss,
That Lucifer with Judas low ingulfs,
Lightly he placed us.
Canto xxxi, lines 133—5.
Judas is engulfed in the lowest part of Hell, in the centre of which Satan stands for ever.
The Middle Ages
259
“like an otter.” Two of the demons, fighting for their prey like
vultures, drop, locked together, into the seething pitch, and their
fellow-goblins have to fish them out, all glued and struggling,
with their prongs.
The poets leave them at the task and proceed to the suc¬
ceeding chasms, where they come upon the Hypocrites weighed
down by gilded cowls of lead — the Thieves, who change with
agony to serpents and from serpents back to sinners — the Evil
Counsellors, each a flame, dancing like strange fireflies in their
gloomy gorge — the Traitors and Schismatics, rent with awful
wounds, one of whom, Brian of Boru, who rebelled against
Henry the Second, King of England, holds up by the hair his
severed head to talk to Dante.
Thence the poets make their way to the ninth circle. The
sound of a great horn, like thunder, strikes their ears, and soon
they see three giants standing at the verge of the lowest pit of
Hell. One of these, Antaeus, sets them down upon the bottom of
the gulf, which is a sea of everlasting ice, in which the forms
of the tormented appear like flies in crystal. Two of these spirits
are frozen in a single hole, and one of them is gnawing like a
dog the other’s skull. He lifts his teeth to tell his awful story.
He is Ugolino, who was thrown into the Tower of Famine with
his sons and left to starve to death. His story of the deaths of
his two dying children is one of the most pathetic in the world.
His companion in the ice is Archbishop Buggiere, who had sent
them to the Tower.
Thus having spoke.
Once more upon the wretched skull his teeth
He fasten’d like a mastiff’s ’gainst the bone.
Firm and unyielding.
And so we come to the last scene of all, the lowest pit of
Hell, the Judecca, so called from Judas, the place of the great
Betrayers. The Arch-Traitor Satan stands for ever in the centre
of it, champing three sinners in his three huge jaws, and sending
260
The Outline of Literature
forth from his vast bat-wings an icy wind that freezes all the sea.
Past him, the pilgrims mount through a long steep passage:
. . . By that hidden way
My guide and I did enter, to return
To the fair world; and heedless of repose
We climb’d, he first, I following his steps.
Till on our view the beautiful lights of heaven
Dawn’d through a circular opening in the cave:
Thence issuing we again beheld the stars.
Leaving the darkness and agonies behind them, they come
out at last beside the Hill of Purgatory, under the quiet shining
of the stars.
Unlike the conception of other medi£eval writers, Dante
imagined Purgatory as being in the open air. Round the steep
sides of its mountain run seven circles, each of them correspond¬
ing to one of the seven deadly sins of the medieval Church. In
the lower terraces are expiated the sins of the spirit, in the fourth
terrace sloth, which is a sin both of the spirit and of the flesh,
and in the three uppermost terraces the sins of the flesh alone.
At the beginning of each terrace instances are given of the virtue
of which the sin is the opposite, and at the end of each stands an
angel personifying it. Finally, when Dante and his guide have
passed the last of the terraces, they enter into the Earthly Para¬
dise where Dante sees the mystical procession representing the
triumphant march of the Church, at the end of which on a
chariot, amidst a hundred angels singing and scattering flowers,
Beatrice appears clad in the mystical colours red, white, and
green, and crowned with a wreath of olive leaves, the symbol of
wisdom and of peace, over her snow-white veil. At her coming
Virgil vanishes to go back to his sad dwelling in the limbo from
which he came.
So the reader reaches the “Paradiso,” which is the crown-
_ •
ing glory of The Divine Comedy. Guided by Beatrice the poet
passes through nine Heavens, which are moving spheres revolving
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261
round our globe, till he reaches the final motionless and fixed
Heaven in the Empyrean. The seven lowest of the Heavens
are named after the moon, the sun, and the planets, and the
eighth after the fixed stars. All these are visible from earth.
Above them is the ninth or crystalline Heaven, which directs by
its movements the daily revolution of all the others. In it nature
starts; from it proceed time and motion, together with all celes¬
tial influences for the government of the world. It is :
The robe that with its regal folds enwraps
The world and with the nearer breath of God
Doth burn and quiver.
Above it, climax of the vision, is the infinite and motionless
sea of divine love where God makes blessed the saints and angels
in the Vision of His Essence.
The old commentators on Dante have much to say regard¬
ing his theology, his metaphysics, his use of allegory, and such
matters. Just so the commentators on Virgil in the Middle Ages
regarded him, not so much as a great poet as a skilled magician,
from whose verses they drew oracles. Just so the early Puritans
disputed whether Christian in The Pilgrim’s Progress was a
sound exponent of the faith. One sage maintains that Beatrice
represents the Church, another that she personifies the love of
God. The lover of great poetry merely stops his ears. All such
rubbish should be swept into the dustbin and forgotten. Only
then can the mighty work of Dante be enjoyed as what it is, a
grand and noble poem, a story of immortal joys and sorrows,
which has no parallel among the works of men.
§ 6
FROISSART’S CHRONICLES
History of the Fourteenth Century
Froissart’s Chronicles of England, France, and Spain is
the outstanding example of the mediaeval chronicle, which is the
262
The Outline of Literature
romance of history. Froissart was born in 1338 and spent most
of his life wandering from one European court to another, pick¬
ing up gossip. His chief patron was good Queen Philippa, the
wife of Edward III. His chronicle is the history of the four¬
teenth century, and of the wars between England and France.
It is written, not so much to communicate facts as, in the words
of its author, “to encourage all valorous hearts and to show them
t
honourable examples.” It is also, in the next degree, a gallery
of portraits; limned in their own works and words, their works
rather than their words, of the right valiant princes and nobles
Sir John Froissart had personally known.
Froissart cared little for the common folk; they finish un¬
lamented by the thousand, but the death of a single knight of
known prowess affects him to tears. “His history,” says Sir
Walter Scott,
has less the air of a narrative than of a dramatic represen¬
tation. The figures live and move before us; we not only
know what they did, but learn the mode and process of the
action, and the very words with which it was accompanied.
... In Froissart, we hear the gallant knights, of whom he
wrote, arrange the terms of combat and the manner of the
onset; we hear the soldiers cry their war-cries; we see them
strike their horses with the spur; and the liveliness of the
narration hurries us along with them into the whirlwind of
battle.
Perhaps the story of the Count de Foix and his son, Gaston,
to whom the King of Navarre gave a little bag of powder, telling
him it would reconcile his mother and father if strewn on the
latter’s meat, is the most terrible example in the book of the
mediaeval savagery, which so ruthlessly sought its ends under
the glittering surface of this chivalrous society. The bag really
contained a deadly poison; and the child who tried to starve him¬
self to death, when it was accidentally discovered, died unforgiven
— by yet another accident — at the hand of his father.
Photo; Rischgitz Collection.
“DANTE IN EXILE,” BY D. PETERLIN
Gallery of Modern Art, Florence.
Dante spent the last nineteen years of his life in exile, and it was during this period that he wrote The Divine Comedy.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
ADMISSION OF SIR TRISTRAM TO THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE ROUND TABLE. FROM THE FRESCO BY WILLIAM DYCE, R.A.
Palace of Westminster.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
CHAUCER AT THE COURT OF EDWARD III, BY FORD MADOX BROWN
Tate Gallery, London.
Chaucer entered the royal service soon after he was twenty, and from then until the death of the King his life was spent in diplomatic
missions abroad and in attendance at court.
The Middle Ages
263
Froissart was translated in 1523 by a great English trans¬
lator of Romance, Lord Berners, whose glittering pages “breathe
the spirit and the very air of that age of infinite variety, in
which the knight-errant appears side by side with the plundering
adventurer, while popular uprisings sound the first note of alarm
to feudal oppressors.”
Philippe de Commines, minister of that astute monarch
Louis XI of France, was an historian of a very different order.
His book is the calm judicious record of the reign of his sover¬
eign, who, by patient and cunning statecraft, laid the foundations
of modern France.
§ 7
CHAUCER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
The Father of English Poetry
Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry, was born
in 1340. We have seen how the great Greek literature was pro¬
duced after the victories of Marathon and Salamis, and the great
Roman literature at the time of Rome’s supreme military glory.
Similarly, the first great English poetry was written, in the age
of Crecy and Poitiers, in the century of the military triumphs of
Edward III and the Black Prince.
Chaucer’s father was a prosperous London vintner. As a
young man he served with the English army in France, after¬
wards obtaining a small place at Court. He was a man of con¬
siderable parts, and was first promoted to a good position in the
Custom House, and was later sent on diplomatic missions to
France and Italy. In Italy he met the poet Petrarch, and most
certainly became acquainted with the stories in Boccaccio’s
Decameron.
Petrarch and Boccaccio were the two foremost Italian
writers after the death of Dante and before the Renaissance.
264
The Outline of Literature
Petrarch wrote both in Latin and Italian. But it is through
his Italian love poetry, in which he immortalised Laura, that
he has an important place in literary history. Boccaccio wrote
the Decameron between the years 1344 and 1350. He was
the father of Italian prose, and his stories exactly reflect
the nature of the Italian people, its grace and elegance, its
naivete, and, what is to the Northerner, its rather repellent
coarseness.
Chaucer had evidently not forgotten Boccaccio’s stories when
he sat down to write The Canterbury Tales, though he attained a
far greater measure of realism and humanism than his Italian
contemporaries. The Canterbury Tales begin with a prologue
in which are described a number of typical English men and
women of the Middle Ages, intent on making a pilgrimage from
the Tabard Inn in Southwark to the shrine of St. Peter at
Canterbury — the Knight, the Prioress, the Miller, the Man of
Law, the Parson, the Wife of Bath, and so on. Each character
is sketched with masterly skill, and the English reader feels that
he is being introduced to actual men and women of his own blood,
just as he does when reading Shakespeare or Dickens. There
was no elass feeling in Merrie England ; the Knight, of the flower
of chivalry, hobnobbed happily with the Miller, and the Parson
with the Shipman. There is a vast difference between fourteenth
and twentieth century English, and owing to this difference it
is probable that Chaucer is read very little nowadays. It may
therefore be worth while to quote his description of the nun who
was one of the pilgrims who journeyed to the shrine of St.
Thomas of Canterbury. The spelling and some of the words
have an unfamiliar appearance, but there is no difficulty in under¬
standing the lines, and if they are read aloud there is no chance
of missing their musical cadence.
Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse,
• ^
That of hir smylyng was ful symple and coy;
Hire gretteste ooth was but by seinte Loy,
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265
And she was cleped madame Eglentyne.
Ful weel she soong the service dyvyne,
Entuned in hir nose ful semely,
And Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly
After the scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe,
For Frenssh of Parys was to hire unknowe.
At mete wel y-taught was she with-alle,
She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle,
Ne wette hir fyngres in hir sauce depe,
Wel koude she carie a morsel and wel kepe,
That no drope ne fille upon hire breste ;
In curteisie was set ful muchel hir leste.
Hire over-lippe wyped she so dene,
That in hir coppe ther was no ferthyng sene
Of grece, when she dronken hadde hir draughte
Ful semely after hir mete she raughte,
And sikerly she was of greet desport,
And ful plesaunt and amyable of port.
And peyned hire to countrefete cheere
Of Court, and been estatlich of manere,
And to ben holden digne of reverence.
But for to speken of hire conscience.
She was so charitable and so pitous
She wolde wepe, if that she saugh a mous
Kaught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde.
Of smale houndes hadde she that she fedde
With rosted flessh, or milk and wastel breed.
But soore wepte she if oon of hem were deed.
Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte;
And al was conscience and tendre herte.
Ful semyly hir wympul pynched was;
Hire nose tretys, hir eyen greye as glas,
Hir mouth ful smal and ther-to softe and reed,
But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed;
It was almoost a spanne brood I trowe.
For, hardly, she was nat undergrowe.
Ful fetys was hir cloke, as I was war ;
Of smal coral aboute hire arm she bar
A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene.
And ther-on heng a brooch of gold ful sheene,
On which ther was first write a crowned A,
And after Amour vincit omnia.
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It has become a common English saying that the average
Englishman can speak French after the “scole of Stratford-atte-
Bowe,” and this is perhaps the only common expression of
modern English that dates back to the fourteenth century. Gold¬
smith may have taken his idea of the village clergyman, “passing
rich on forty pounds a year,” from Chaucer’s “Poor Parson of
a Town”:
He waited after no pompe and reverence,
Ne maked him a spiced conscience.
But Cristes loore, and his Apostles twelve,
He taughte, hut first he folwed it hym selve.
After the Prologue, Chaucer relates the stories that each of
the pilgrims tells: the Knight an old romance, the Prioress a
legend of Our Lady, the Priest a ghost-story, and the Wife of
Bath, a lady who had had as many husbands as the woman of
Samaria, a romantic tale of Sir Gserwain and his bride. The
stories are in every mood — comic and sentimental, grave and
gay, and are told with immense spirit and skill.
Chaucer died in 1400. In his day educated people in Eng¬
land still spoke French and English, and Chaucer’s great ser¬
vice to English literature is that his success as an English poet
made it impossible for any later Englishman to write in a lan¬
guage not his own.
Contemporary with Chaucer were William Langland, the
author of Piers Plowman, who was born in Oxfordshire in 1332;
and John Gower, who died in 1408 and was buried in St.
Saviour’s Church, Southwark, and whose Pyramus and Thisbe
was acted by Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Piers Plowman describes the misery of the common people
caused by the ceaseless and senseless wars that ravaged Western
Europe in Chaucer’s century, the obverse side of the glory of the
third Edward.
FRANCOIS VILLON
The fifteenth-century burglar who lives as a
poet.
Photo: Fredk Hollyer,
THE DREAM OF SIR LAUNCELOT, BY SIR E. BURNE-JONES
Launcelot is the most attractive and human of all the romantic figures that sat at the Round Table.
King Arthur, the perfect knight, died the victim of treachery.
The Middle Ages
§ 8
267
MALORY’S “MORTE D’ARTHUR”
A Translation from French Romances
During the later centuries of the Middle Ages that heralded
the Renaissance, Europe was stirred to a joyous awakening, the
immediate result of which was a riot of romance-writing, and by
good fortune we have a book in our own language that is the sum
and symbol of all this splendid activity. Sir Thomas Malory’s
Morte d' Arthur is not exactly an original work: it was compiled
in the main from French romances. These in their turn, how¬
ever, had been based on ancient Celtic legends, so that in the
Knights of the Round Table are to be found a company of
British heroes comparable to the heroes of classic myth and of
the German Nibelungen Lied.
That Sir Thomas Malory was more than a translator is
shown in the fact that the book occupies in English literature a
position infinitely higher than its French originals ever held in the
literature of France. He is said to have been a Warwickshire
gentleman, knighted in 1445, and a Member of Parliament, who
was taken captive in the Wars of the Roses, Le Morte d" Arthur
being partly written in prison. The book was completed by
1470. It was the last important work finished before the intro¬
duction of printing, and one of the first printed by Caxton when
he set up his press at Westminster.
Le Morte d" Arthur is a collection of simply written tales
about Arthur, Launcelot, Galahad, Percival, Tristram, and other
great figures, their loves and adventures. The book is divided
into twenty-one parts, with an infinite number of short chapters.
The first part tells legends of the birth and early days of Arthur.
One day there suddenly appeared in an English churchyard a
huge stone, with a sword embedded in an anvil. Gold letters
written on the marble declared that ‘Whoso pulleth out this sword
from this stone and anvil is rightwise king born of all England "
The Outline of Literature
!268
Arthur had been sent home from a New Year’s tournament to
fetch his elder brother’s sword, and thinking to save himself the
long journey by calling at the churchyard and taking the sword
embedded in the stone, he pulled it free and thus became King of
England. His accession entailed various adventures, including a
stout battle with eleven kings and a great host, against which he
“did so marvellously in arms that all men had wonder.”
He married the beautiful Guenever, and lived in splendid
state at the city of Carleon in Wales, surrounded by hundreds of
knights and beautiful ladies, patterns of valour, breeding, and
grace to all the world. The bravest of the knights formed the
king’s immediate circle, sitting with him at the Round Table, and
“pleasing him more than right great riches.” From the court of
Arthur these knights went forth to all parts in search of adven¬
ture — to protect women, chastise oppressors, liberate the en¬
chanted, enchain giants and malicious dwarfs. To read of their
exploits is to consort with the greatest lovers the world has known,
to enter the many-towered cities of the dreamland of chivalry,
“where knights and dames with new and wondrous names go
singing down the street.” There is the thrilling tale of Sir
Gawaine and Gaheris, and how four knights fought against them
and overcame them, and how at the last moment their lives were
saved at the request of four ladies: the tale of Pellinore, and how
a lady desired help of him, and how he fought with two knights
for her and slew one of them at the first stroke: the tale of the
Lady of the Lake, and how she saved King Arthur from a mantle
which should have burnt him, and how another lady helped La
Cote Mail Taile in his fight against a hundred knights by con¬
niving at his escape: of Launcelot’s slaughter of a knight “who
distressed all ladies, and also a villain that kept the bridge” :
and countless others in which love is often as important as valour
itself.
The life and exploits of the famous Sir Tristram are de¬
scribed in rich detail, in the middle part of Malory’s book. Tris-
The Middle Ages
269
tram learned to harp, hawk, and hunt in France, and he makes
an auspicious entry into the ranks of English chivalry by taunt¬
ing two knights of the Round Table until they came at him “as
it had been thunder”:
And Sir Dodinas’ spear brast (broke) in sunder, but
Sir Tristram smote him with a more might, that he smote
him clean over the horse-croup, that nigh he had broken his
neck. When Sir Sagramore saw his fellow fall he marvelled
what knight he might be, and he dressed his spear with all his
might, and Sir Tristram against him, and they came to¬
gether as the thunder, and there Sir Tristram smote Sir
Sagramore a strong buffet, that he bare his horse and him
to the earth, and in the falling he brake his thigh. When
this was done Sir Tristram asked them: “Fair knights, will
ye any more? Be there no bigger knights in the court of
King Arthur?”
After this Sir Tristram had great renown in Arthur’s court,
for he was ever ready for a “jousting” or a private duel. No
sooner had he saved Sir Palomides’ life, indeed, than the two are
in arms against each other. “Have remembrance of your prom¬
ise,” Sir Tristram says, “that ye had made with me to do battle
with me this day fortnight.” “I shall not fail you,” says Sir
Palomides, whereupon “they mounted their horses and rode
away together.”
With the tale of Tristram and Iseult, the love potion, and
King Mark’s revenge, we pass on to the Quest of the Holy
Grail, or Sangrael, the dish used by Christ when He ordained
the Eucharist. This sacred vessel was supposed to have been
brought to Glastonbury by Joseph of Arimathea. One night
while King Arthur and his court were at supper, there was a
sudden thunder, and “a sunbeam more clearer by seven times than
ever they saw day,” so that all the knights were transfigured, and
all the hall was “fulfilled with good odours, and every knight had
such meats and drinks as he best loved in this world.” The Holy
270
The Outline of Literature
Grail itself had entered among them, covered with white samite.
None saw it, nor v/ho carried it. Then as swiftly it departed,
and “they wist not where it became”; whereupon Sir Gavaine
and the knights vowed to go in search of it. Miraculous are the
happenings which follow, and in the story a new nobility is
grafted on to the mingled pathos and comedy of the earlier
pages.
Moving majestically by way of Sir Galahad, Sir Bors, and
Sir Lionel, the narrative reaches its tragic ending, the inevitable
issue of the guilty loves of Launcelot and Guenever, the wife
of the King, encompassing the death of the deceived King
Arthur because, for him, there was no longer “trust for to
trust in. For I will into the Vale of Avilion to heal me of my
grievous wound. And if thou hear never more of me, pray for
my soul.”
Though he sinned and was punished, Launcelot remains the
ideal figure of chivalry, heightened by the devotion of the lovely
Elaine, who died for unrequited love of him. Sir Ector’s speech
over his wasted body is perhaps the finest passage in the story:
“Ah, Launcelot,” he said, “thou wert head of all Chris¬
tian knights, and now, I dare say,” said Sir Ector, “thou. Sir
Launcelot, there thou liest, that thou wert never matched of
earthly knight’s hand. And thou wert the courteoust knight
that ever bare shield. And thou wert the truest friend to thy
lover that ever bestrad horse. And thou wert the truest lover
of a sinful man that ever loved woman. And thou wert the
kindest man that ever struck with sword. And thou wert the
goodliest person that ever came among press of knights.
And thou wert the meekest man and the gentlest that ever
ate in hall among ladies. And thou wert the sternest knight
to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest.”
W e have seen how the Greek myths supplied the plots of the
Athenian tragedies and were repeated by the Homan poets. W e
have noted how the German myths have been used by the greatest
The Middle Ages
£71
of German creative artists. Similarly the story told by Malory
has inspired many English writers. Spenser’s “Faerie Queen”
owes much to it, and although we have no evidence that Shake¬
speare even read it, we know that Milton was contemplating an
Arthurian epic in 1639. Tennyson, in “The Idylls of the King,”
Swinburne, in “Tristram of Lyonesse,” Morris, in “The Defence
of Guenevere” and several other poems, and Matthew Arnold in
“Tristram and Iseult,” were all moved to write great poetry by
Le Morte d' Arthur, while Mr. Maurice Hewlett has drawn on it
for his contemporary romances.
§ 9
FRANCOIS VILLON, POET AND THIEF
An Anomaly
The literary history of the Middle Ages finishes with Fran¬
cois Villon, the unlucky French poet-thief, who was born in 1431.
He was a robber and a murderer, his life was spent in the vile
Alsatias of Paris, he was frequently imprisoned, only escaping
execution as if by a miracle, and at the end he vanished from the
scene no one knows how or where. The date of his death is un¬
recorded, the place of his burial unknown.
Villon took the old French poetic forms, the Rondeau, the
Rondel, and the Ballade, and gave them new life and new beauty.
His verse is instinct with melancholy. He mocks at life, he boasts
of his sins, but he writes all the time in the shadow of the gallows,
and fear of the horror of death never leaves him. He seems to
epitomise the pain and fear of the Middle Ages as Dante epito¬
mises their grandeur and their ideals, and Chaucer their happy
laughter.
Villon lives for us in Swinburne’s beautiful poem:
Prince of sweet songs made out of tears and fire,
A harlot was thy nurse, a God thy sire ;
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The Outline of Literature
Shame soiled thy song, and song assoiled thy shame
But from thy feet now death has washed the mire.
Love reads out first at head of all bur quire,
Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother’s name.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
W. P. Ker, The Dark Ages, and F. J. Snell, The Fourteenth Century.
St. Augustine’s Confessions (Pusey’s translation).
The Lay of the Nibelungs, metrically translated by Alice Horton and
edited by Edward Bell. To this is prefixed The Essay on the Nibelungen
Lied, by Thomas Carlyle.
H. J. Chaytor’s The Troubadours.
Paget Toynbee’s Dante Alighieri.
Froissart’s Chronicles.
Petrarch’s Sonnets, Triumphs, and other Poems.
Forty Novels from the Decameron, with Introduction by Henry Morley.
Malory’s Morte d’Arthur.
H. de Vere Stacpoole’s Frangois Villon, his Life and Times.
Political Theory of the Middle Ages by Dr. Otto Gierke, trans. with
Introduction by F. W. Maitland.
Adamnani, Vita S. Columbae, edited by J. T. Fowler with Translation.
Adamnan, Life of St. Columba, translated by Wentworth Huyshe.
F. Warre Cornish, Chivalry.
IX
THE RENAISSANCE
VOL. I — 18
273
-r f
A.
ij t'i
«,■
THE RENAISSANCE
1
THE NEW LEARNING
The Causes of the Awakening
Renaissance means rebirth. The epoch of Euro¬
pean history that is known as the Renaissance was the
period of the revival of learning, with the consequent
impetus to literature and art, that occurred in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. For six hundred years after the death of
St. Augustine, Europe was enveloped in a mist of intellectual
darkness, the ancient classic learning being preserved in only a
few monasteries. The dawn came slowly, with the magnificent
conception of the wonders of life to be found in Dante ; with the
joy of living so evident in Chaucer. With the Renaissance, the
sun burst forth in fresh glory and revealed itself in the develop¬
ment of ideas and in new-found beauty of expression. The causes
of the awakening can be only summarised here. The capture of
Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 was followed by the exodus
of Greek scholars to Italy, carrying with them the knowledge of
Greek literature that the west of Europe had almost entirely lost.
A century earlier the Italians had learned from the Moors to
make paper, and, most important of all, the first printing press
was set up at Mentz in Germany, ten years before the fall of
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The Outline of Literature
Constantinople. In 1492 Columbus discovered America, and
men began to have an entirely new idea of the world. Social,
political, and religious ideas were revolutionised, and the spirit
of inquiry and intellectual activity heralded the Reformation.
There is no more happy coincidence in the history of the world
than that the new learning and the printing press, the new way
of propagating learning, came to Europe almost at the same
moment.
Because of its nearness to Greece and because of its inheri¬
tance of the Roman tradition, the Renaissance began in Italy,
and it was there that “man began to turn from the medi£eval
preoccupation with death, to raise his eyes from long dwelling
on the grave, and to rejoice in the dear life of earth and the glory
of this beautiful world.” To quote Symonds, “Florence borrowed
her light from Athens, as the moon shines with rays reflected from
the sun.” The Italian scholars turned their attention to rescuing
the classical manuscripts from a mouldering death. Translations
were made from the ancient authors of Greece and Rome, whose
work had been buried in the monasteries.
The Italian Renaissance was the period of the magnificent
Medicis, patrons of poets and artists, and the gorgeously reck¬
less Borgias; of the Orsinis, the Colonnas, and the D’Estes,
whose very names suggest ornate raiment, a fine and unmoral
culture, and dark and mysterious intrigue; of Michael Angelo
and Raphael and Da Vinci; of Ariosto and Machiavelli.
§ 2
ARIOSTO AND MACHIAVELLI
The Influence of Italian Renaissance Literature
In a brief consideration of Italian Renaissance literature, it
is to Machiavelli and Ariosto that we turn in particular, though
there were a legion of other writers busy in Italy during this
period, whose work has genuine interest and importance. Italian
The Renaissance
277
Renaissance literature influenced great English writers like
Spenser, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Milton, It was, for ex¬
ample, from the stories written hy Matteo Bandello that Shake¬
speare took the plots of Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night,
Ariosto’s famous poem “Orlando Furioso” was described by
John Addington Symonds as “the purest and most perfect ex¬
tant example of Renaissance poetry.” It is characteristic of its
age in so much as its interest is human and that it has no concern
with the deity or with life beyond the grave. The mediaeval world
was interested in the other world. The Renaissance was inter¬
ested in this world.
Lodovico Ariosto was born in 1474. When he was nineteen
he entered the service of the Cardinal d’Este. He started writing
the “Orlando Furioso” in 1505, and finished it ten years later.
The poem gave him a great reputation in Italy, and Pope Leo
X became one of the poet’s patrons. After he had finished his
poem, he wrote comedies in the manner of the Latin, Plautus
and Terence. Towards the end of his life Ariosto was appointed
governor of a province situated on the wildest heights of the
Apennines. Like most poets, Ariosto was always impecunious,
and the salary attached to the governorship was his reason for
accepting what must have been an uncongenial office. His prov¬
ince was overrun with bandits, and on one occasion the poet-
governor himself fell into their hands. When their leader found
that his captive was the author of Orlando Furioso, with a fine
appreciation for literature he at once apologised for the indignity
that had been put on him and set him free.
The “Orlando Furioso” is a romantic poem, describing fierce
contests between Christian and Pagan knights, thrilling adven¬
tures and chivalrous loves. Its theme is of the same order as the
theme of the stories of King Arthur. The poem is written in a
series of cantos, each canto having a prelude which acts as a link
between the episodes and gives the poet opportunity for moral
and patriotic reflection. “Orlando Furioso” was first trans-
278
The Outline of Literature
lated into English by Sir John Harrington, an Elizabethan poet.
Perhaps its finest passages are those in which Ariosto describes
Orlando’s despair and subsequent madness when he finds that
Angelica, whom he loves, has been faithless to him and has
married Medoro.
I am not I, the man that erst I was,
Orlando, he is buried and is dead.
His most ungrateful love (ah foolish lasse!)
Hath killed Orlando and cut off his head.
I am his ghost that up and down must pass
In this tormenting dell for ever led,
To be a fearful sample and a just
To all such fooles as put in love their trust.
In another place Ariosto describes the death of a gallant
young king with appealing charm.
See how a purple flower doth fade and die
That by the mower’s hand is lowly laid ;
O’er in the garden falls the poppy’s head.
Weighed down and broken by the stormy rain.
Thus to the ground, upon his pallid face,
Fell Dardinell, and thus from life he passed.
He passed from life, and with him passed away
The spirit and the courage of his host.
At the beginning of the poem Ariosto deelares:
Of ladies and of knights, of arms and love.
Of courtesy and of brave deeds I sing.
And the spirit of the poem is expressed in the lines:
But he that loves indeed remaineth fast,
And loves and serves when life and all is past.
Although Ariosto lived in comparative poverty, his genius
was acclaimed by his fellow-countrymen, to whom he was “the
divine Ariosto,” and it is said that his great contemporary Galileo
Photo: W. .4. Mansell &“ Co.
ARIOSTO
The greatest of the Italian Renaissance poets.
Fromthe painting by Titian inlhe National Gallery, London.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
MACHIAVELLI
Author of The Prince, and minister of Cesare Borgia.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
RABELAIS
Monk, wit, laughing philosopher. One of the three supreme
figures of the Renaissance.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
CERVANTES
The author of Don Quixote.
Photo: W. A. Mansell Co.
“SANCHO PANZA IN THE APARTMENT OF THE DUCHESS,” BY C. R. LESLIE, R.A.
Tate Gallery, London.
Sancho Panza was Don Quixote’s servant — foolish, dishonest, but faithful to the Knight.
The Renaissance
279
knew the whole of “Orlando Furioso” by heart. It may be seen
from the short quotations printed here how direct is the con¬
nection between Ariosto and Shakespeare and the other
Elizabethan poets.
Nicolo Machiavelli was the most important European poli¬
tician of the early Renaissance. In his Outline of History, Mr.
H. G. Wells has well described how profoundly Machiavelli’s
famous book The Prince affected the thoughts of men and the
course of human affairs.
Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469. Before he was
thirty he was appointed secretary to the governing body of the
Florentine Republic. This office led to his being sent as envoy
to other Italian cities, as well as to the court of Louis XII of
France. His most important mission occurred in 1502, when
he was sent to represent Florence with Cesare Borgia, then at
the height of his insolent and magnificent power. Machiavelli
told the story of this mission in a series of letters, in which he de¬
scribed Cesare as “a prince who governs for himself.” In another
place he speaks of him as “a man without compassion, rebellious
to Christ, a basilisk, a hydra, deserving of the most wretched
end.” Yet for this picturesque monster Machiavelli conceived a
considerable admiration, and in The Prince Cesare becomes a sort
of model for other rulers to imitate. In 1512 the rule of the
Medicis was restored in Florence and Machiavelli lost his official
position. He was imprisoned and tortured, and afterwards re¬
tired to a small country estate, where The Prince was written.
He died in Florence at the age of fifty-eight.
“Machiavellian” has come to mean subtle, unscrupulous
craft. But the common judgment of Machiavelli is not entirely
justified. He was a realist, with no great belief in either God or
man, and he sets out in The Prince the principles of what is now
generally described by the German phrase “Realpolitik,” the
political principles, that is, of Queen Elizabeth, Napoleon, and
Bismarck. Machiavelli was not an idealist. He was concerned
280
The Outline of Literature
not with men as they ought to be, but as they are. Francis Bacon
was a great admirer of The Prince^ and he said: “We are much
beholden to Machiavelli and others that wrote what men do and
not what they ought to do.” Hobbes, Bolingbroke, Hume, and
Montesquieu were all to some extent his pupils.
The most conspicuous Italian writer of the later Renais¬
sance period was the poet Torquato Tasso, the author of “Jeru¬
salem Delivered,” who was born in 1544 and died in 1595. Tasso
was a poet of sentiment, and sentiment expressing the growing
feeling for woman and music. Tasso finished his great poem
when he was thirty-one. The last twenty years of his life were
tragic. He became half insane, and spent his time “wandering
like the world’s rejected guest.”
§ 3
RABELAIS AND MONTAIGNE
A Giant of the Renaissance
After Italy, the revival of literature came in France. Fran-
9ois Rabelais, the greatest of all French Renaissance writers, was
born in 1490 and died in 1553. The Frenchman Rabelais, the
Spaniard Cervantes, and the Englishman Shakespeare, are with¬
out question the three giants of the Renaissanee. The Renais¬
sance was a period of intense life following a period of stagna¬
tion, an age of learning, optimism, and courage. Its spirit finds
triumphant expression in the two great books of Rabelais, Gar-
gantua and Pantagruel.
Fran9ois Rabelais was bom at Chinon in the province of
Touraine in southern France. Very little is known about his
youth, though it is said that his father was either an apothecary
or an innkeeper. He took priest’s orders in 1511, and for a year
or two prior to that date and until 1524 he was a Franciscan
monk, living in the monastery of Fontenay le Comte. After-
The Renaissance
281
wards he became a Benedictine, and in 1530 he gave up his
monk’s habit to be a secular priest. He died on April 9, 1553.
There are many legends about Rabelais’s death-bed. He is said
to have exclaimed: “The farce is finished” and “I am going to
seek the great perhaps.” But all these stories are probably
apocryphal.
The Renaissance was, in a sense, a rebellion against the
domination of a narrow, ignorant, monastical tyranny. Rabelais
was a monk for over thirty years. He had an intimate know¬
ledge of the abuses of the sheltered life, and he laughs at monks,
and be it added, at most other people and things of his time, with
whole-hearted laughter. Professor Saintsbury insists that
Rabelais “neither sneers nor rages.” He is a sort of sixteenth
century Charles Dickens, “a humorist pure and simple, feeling
often in earnest, thinking almost always in jest.” Gargantua
and Pantagruel are hard books to read. They are extremely
obscene, though really not more so than other literature of the
period, and Professor Saintsbury is perfectly justified in point¬
ing out that the coarseness is open and natural and far less re¬
volting than “the sniggering indecency which disgraces men like
Pope, like Voltaire, and like Sterne.”
His book is an orgy of words written in whirling sentences.
He anticipated the love of fine-sounding words of Mr. Wells’s
Mr. Polly. The intention of Gargantua and Pantagruel is to
preach the gospel of Pantagruelism, which teaches that only by
humour and laughter can the world be cleaned and saved. Pan-
tagruehsm is a good and a true gospel preached by many another
great man since the days of the great French laughing philoso¬
pher. As proof that Rabelais could be simple and unaffected,
and that he has been grossly libelled when he has been described
as nothing but a “dirty old blackguard,” one may quote the
following paragraphs from the description of the life of the
monks and nuns in the Abbey of Theleme in the translation by
Sir Thomas Urquhart :
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All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules,
but according to their own free will and pleasure. They
rose out of their beds when they thought good ; they did eat,
drink, labour, sleep, when they had a mind to it, and were
disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer to
constrain them to eat, drink, nor do any other thing; for
so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule and strict¬
est tie of their order there was but this one clause to be
observed : —
DO WHAT THOU WILT
Because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and
conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct
and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and
•withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those
same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are
brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble
disposition by which they were formerly inclined to virtue,
to shake off and break that bond of servitude wherein they
are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the
nature of man to long after things forbidden and to desire
what is denied us.
There is, in this Utopian picture, the characteristic Renais¬
sance love of beauty and seemliness with the equally characteris¬
tic Renaissance enlightened humanism. Enough, indeed has been
quoted from Rabelais to provide ample justification for the fine
saying that his writing “seems to belong to the morning of the
world, a time of mirth and a time of expectation.”
MONTAIGNE
Montaigne wrote a generation after Rabelais. He had none
of his fellow-countryman’s coarseness, none of his humour, none
of his tremendous enjoyment of life. When Catholic was perse¬
cuting Protestant, and Protestant was persecuting Catholic
Montaigne agreed with neither and did his best to protect both.
The Renaissance
283
In his essays he is garrulous, good-natured, often trivial — a very
gentle philosopher.
Toleranee, kindliness, sweetness, culture are the notes of
Montaigne’s essays. He talks always about himself, but there
is in his pages none of what Mr. Lytton Strachey has called “the
tremendous introspections” of Rousseau. Montaigne was a scep¬
tic, the agnostic of the Renaissance. “What do I know?” he con¬
tinually asked. And he never found an answer quite satisfactory
to himself. He was not the man to kick against the pricks, but
he contrived to combine resignation with self-respect. In one
of his essays he quotes an old sailor, who said: “O God, Thou wilt
save me, if it be Thy will, and if Thou choosest, Thou wilt destroy
me; but, however it be, I will always hold my rudder straight.”
That is Montaigne.
His essays are himself. When Henry III told him that he
liked his books, he replied, “I am my book.” It covers almost
all human experience. It expresses the whole mind of a kindly
man of the world. “One finds in it all that one has ever thought.”
Montaigne was a Catholic. Nevertheless, “it is a peevish
infirmitie, for a man to thinke himself e so firmely grounded, as
to perswade himselfe, that the contrarie may not be believed.”
He hated fanaticism. He hated cruelty and loathed the horrors
of punishment in his day. His humanitarianism, indeed, would
have been on a high level to-day :
As for me, I could never so much as endure, without
remorse and griefe, to see a poore, sillie, and innocent beast
pursued and killed, which is harmlesse and void of defence,
and of whom we receive no offence at all. And as it com¬
monly hapneth, that when the Stag begins to be embost, and
finds his strength to faile him, having no other remedie left
him, doth yeeld and bequeath himselfe into us that pursue
him, with teares suing to us for mercie.
With blood from throat, and teares from eyes,
It seemes that he for pitie cryes,
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was ever a grievous spectaele unto me. I seldom take any
beast alive, but I give him his libertie. Pythagoras was
wont to buy fishes of fishers, and birds of fowlers to set
them free againe.
From the volume of his wisdom we select the following
characteristic passages :
Fear. Such as are in continuall feare to lose their
goods, to be banished, or to be subdued, live in uncessant
agonie and languor ; and thereby often lose both their drink¬
ing, their eating, and their rest. Whereas the poore, the
banished, and seely servants, live often as carelessly and as
pleasantly as the other.
Constancy. The reputation and worth of a man con-
sisteth in his heart and will: therein consists true honour:
Constancie is valour, not of armes and legs, but of minde
and courage: it consisteth not in the spirit and courage of
our horse, nor of our armes, but in ours.
Glory. Of all the follies of the world, the most uni¬
versal!, and of most men received, is the care of reputation,
and studie of glorie, to which we are so wedded, that we
neglect, and cast-off riches, friends, repose, life and health
(goods effectuall and substantial!) to follow that vaine
image, and idlie-simple voice, which hath neither body, nor
hold-fast.
For Montaigne the whole law and the prophets was sum¬
marised in the sentence: “The greatest thing of the world is for
a man to know how to be his owne.”
§ 4
CERVANTES
Don Quixote
In Spain the literary glory of the Renaissance is the glory
of Cervantes. Here, as in Italy and France and England, the
golden age of the awakening saw the quickening of an essentially
The Renaissance
285
national life which found expression in a definitely national art
and literature. The sixteenth century was the era of Spanish
greatness. The Moors had at last been driven back to Africa,
the Jews had been expelled, the Peninsula had become a united
nation, made rich and famous by the prowess of her explorers
and the valour of her armies. It was in this atmosphere of
national glory that Velasquez painted and Cervantes wrote.
Apart from the plays of Shakespeare, Don Quixote is the most
beautiful and wonderful gift of the Renaissance to the literature
of the world. And although Cervantes may have begun it with
the idea of gibing at the whole idea of chivalry which, a real and
human action motive in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, had
become something of an absurdity in the sixteenth, his great book
became much more than mere series of gibes while it was growing
under his master hand. Hazlitt has said of Don Quixote:
The character of Don Quixote himself is one of the most
perfect disinterestedness. He is an enthusiast of the most
amiable kind; of a nature equally open, gentle, and gener¬
ous; a lover of truth and justice; and one who had brooded
over fine dreams of chivalry and romance, till they had
robbed him of himself, and cheated his brain into a belief of
their reality.
There cannot be a greater mistake than to consider
Don Quixote as a merely satirical work, or as a vulgar
attempt to explode “the long-forgotten order of chivalry.”
There could be no need to explode what no longer existed.
Besides, Cervantes himself was a man of the most sanguine
and enthusiastic temperament ; and even through the carved
and battered figure of the knight the spirit of chivalry
shines out with undiminished lustre; as if the author had
half-designed to revive the example of past ages, and once
more “witch the world with noble horsemanship.”
Miguel de Cervantes died on the same day as Shakespeare
in the year 1616. He was born in 1547, and he lived the adven-
286
The Outline of Literature
turous life of a typical Spaniard of his century. He fought at
the famous sea battle of Lepanto, in which Don John of Austria,
with a fleet of twenty-four Spanish ships, defeated the Turks.
During the battle Cervantes received three gunshot wounds,
one of which permanently maimed his left hand, “for the greater
glory of the right,” as he himself said. Four years afterwards
he was taken prisoner by the Barbary Corsairs, and was kept as
a slave in Algiers until the year 1580. From that time onwards
Cervantes earned an insufficient living as a writer and a petty
Government official. He was always very poor. He was more
than once imprisoned, and the first part of Don Quixote was
probably written in a prison cell. This first part was published
in 1605. It had an immediate success, and several pirated trans¬
lations, from which, of course, the author received nothing, ap¬
peared during the next few years, both in French and in English.
The second part of Don Quixote was published in 1615. Don
Quixote gives the reader, as has been well said, a brilliant pano¬
rama of Spanish society as it existed during the sixteenth century.
To quote Fitzmaurice Kelly:
Nobles, knights, poets, courtly gentlemen, priests,
traders, farmers, barbers, muleteers, scullions, and convicts ;
accomplished ladies, impassioned damsels, Moorish beauties,
simple-hearted country-girls and kindly kitchen-wenches of
questionable morals — all these are presented with the genial
fidelity which comes of sympathetic insight. The immediate
vogue of Don Quixote was due chiefly to its variety of
incident, to its wealth of comedy bordering on farce, and
perhaps, also, to its keen thrusts at eminent contemporaries;
its reticent pathos, its large humanity, and its penetrating
criticisms of life were less speedily appreciated.
There is the same charm in the diverse characters of Don
Quixote as there is in the characters of The Canterbury Tales.
And the note of the masterpiece is an understanding humanism
which was not only the brightest quality of the Renaissance, but
Photo: Eyre (s’ Spottiswoode, Ltd, By permission of the Corporation of Oldham,
“don QUIXOTE AND MARITORNES AT THE INN,” BY ROLAND ^VHEEL WRIGHT
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
“SPENSER READING THE ‘FAERIE QUEENE’ TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH,” BY JOHN CLARETON
Spenser and Raleigh were two of the most splendid and chivalrous personages of Elizabeth's court. They were courtiers, soldiers, and
above all, lovers of literature.
Photo: Rischgitz Collection.
SIR THOMAS MORE
After Holbein.
Lord Chancellor, friend of Erasmus and author of
Utopia. More was beheaded for refusing to recognise
Henry VIII as head of the Church.
Photo: Rischgits Collection.
EDMUND SPENSER
Soldier and poet.
The Renaissance
287
is the characteristic of all really great literature. In telling the
story of Don ^Quiocote, Cervantes came to laugh and remained to
pray. Don Quixote himself, “nigh fifty years of age, of a hale
and strong complexion, lean bodied and thin faced, an early riser,
and a lover of hunting,” astride his steed Rozinante, so thin that
its bones “stuck out like the corners of a Spanish reel,” is a figure
of fun. His adoration of his Dulcinea is ridiculous. His servant
Sancho Panza is a glutton and a liar. Yet long before one has
read Don Quixote to the end the knight has become the real
hero of a genuine human romance, and Cervantes has discovered,
what Dickens discovered when he created Mr. Toots and Cap¬
tain Cuttle, that to be weak-minded is often to be large-hearted,
and that the foolish are often more worthy of admiration than
the wise. The knight never fails in chivalry, and his faith is un¬
shakable. One of the most famous incidents in the story occurs
when Don Quixote .couches his lance and charges a windmill.
When he first caught sight of the windmills he was vastly excited.
“Fortune,” cried he, “directs our affairs better than
we ourselves could have wished: look yonder, friend Sancho,
there are at least thirty outrageous giants whom I intend
to encounter; and, having deprived them of life, we will
begin to enrich ourselves with their spoils; for they are law¬
ful prize; and the extirpation of that cursed brood will he
an acceptable service to heaven.”
When the knight’s lance is broken into shivers and he and his
horse are hurled away, his faith remains unshaken. “That cursed
necromancer Freston,” he said, “has transformed these giants
into windmills to deprive me of the honour of victory.” The
faith that can remove mountains must be a faith that can turn
hard facts into thrilling romances. And only the man with a
great heart ever had the audacity to tilt at windmills.
Sancho Panza, for all his gluttony and selfishness, is a good-
natured and faithful servant, and it may be that when Dickens
288
The Outline of Literature
attached Sam Weller to Mr. Pickwick he had Sancho in mind.
Sancho Panza is shrewd enough to see through his master, hut
because he can see through him he can see what is in him, and his
master’s great heart commands his servant’s affection.
Cervantes gave the world one of its greatest and noblest
figures — sanguine and enthusiastic, ennobled by his very illu¬
sions, graced with true dignity, even in the most undignified situa¬
tions — always entirely lovable.
§ 5
ERASMUS AND THOMAS MORE
The Renaissance saw the two great movements which more
than anything else, more even than the French Revolution, have
moulded the course of European history, the Reformation and
the Counter-Reformation. The Reformation occurred almost
immediately after the invention of printing, and it was natural
that the bitter controversy between the reformers and the ad¬
herents of the old faith should have led to the publication of a
vast polemical literature. Books dealing with the religious and
theological difficulties of bygone generations do not make excit¬
ing reading, and cannot be regarded as of any great literary im¬
portance. One, however, of the sixteenth century theologians
was a great scholar and a great writer. He was the Dutchman,
Erasmus, the friend of Sir Thomas More, the author of Utopia,
of Cardinal Wolsey, and of Dean Colet, whose enthusiasm for
education and the new learning made him the founder of St.
Paul’s School, London. At the beginning of the Renaissance
there was, perhaps, a greater enthusiasm for learning than there
has been at any other time in European history, and of all the
learned men in Renaissance Europe, Erasmus was notoriously
the most learned. Popes, emperors, and kings conspired to do
him honour.
The Renaissance
289
A Voluminous Author
Erasmus was one of the last great European writers who
wrote in Latin. He was a voluminous author, and perhaps to
modern readers his most interesting book is The Praise of Folly,
which was reprinted more than seven times in the course of a
few months. In The Praise of Folly Erasmus satirises “the stu¬
dent for his sickly look, the grammarian for his self-satisfaction,
the philosopher for his quibbling, the sportsman for his love of
butchery, the superstitious for his belief in the virtue of images
and shrines.”
Sir Thomas More, with whose writings the Renaissance may
be said to have begun in England, was born nearly a hundred
years earlier than Shakespeare, and was the contemporary of
Ariosto, Machiavelli, and Rabelais. More was a great lawyer
(a Lord Chancellor in the reign of Henry VIII), a scholar, and
a man of wide culture and appreciation. He was the intimate
friend of Dean Colet, of Erasmus, and of the Dutch painter^
Holbein, who lived for a while in his house at Chelsea. He was
a wit and a man of conscience and character, who lost great place
and finally his life rather than agree to the Act of Supremacy,
which made Henry VIII the supreme head of the English
Church, declaring that “there are things which no Parliament
can do — no Parliament can make a law that God shall not be
God.” It is an interesting fact that this great Renaissance
scholar should have been beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886
and should now live in Church history as the Blessed Thomas
More.
Thomas More was fascinated by the new learning in his
early youth, and he was one of the first Englishmen to learn to
read Greek. His famous book Utopia, which inspired Bacon’s
The New Atlantis and many another dream of the future, and
which has given an expressive adjective to the English language,
was obviously based on Plato’s Republic. It is impossible to
understand the spirit of the Renaissance unless one remembers.
VOL. I — 19
290
The Outline of Literature
that it was the age of the discovery of new countries, as well as
of the discovery of the joy of old books; the age of great voyagers
as well as of great poets. The strange new continent of America
had been discovered, and it was natural for a Renaissance
thinker, weary of old abuses, and longing for a more rational and
more kindly society, to imagine this existence of a far-away
island, a Utopia, where men should live together in happiness and
content. More followed Erasmus in writing his Utopia in Latin.
It was first published in 1516 at Louvain. A second edition was
issued in Paris in 1517, and a third edition at Basel in 1518. The
first English translation, by Ralph Robinson, was published in
1551. Mark Pattison says that in the Utopia More “not only
denounced the ordinary vices of power, but evinced an enlighten¬
ment of sentiment which went far beyond the most statesmanlike
ideas to be found among his contemporaries, pronouncing not
merely for toleration, but rising even to the philosophic concep¬
tion of the indifference of religious creed.”
In Utopia, More described an imaginary island republic,
the home of a people living an ideal life.
Among the other important prose writings of Renaissance
England were Richard Hakluyt’s Voyages, the literary result
of the age of Drake and his fellow-adventurers, and John Lyly’s
Euphues, an example of over-coloured and highly artificial writ¬
ing, fashionable at a time when men were just beginning to
realise the full beauty of their own language.
§ 6
SPENSER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
The spirit of adventure, the joy of beauty, the new know¬
ledge of ancient Greek and Renaissance Italian poetry were the
influences to which Elizabethan poetry owed its character. The
Elizabethan poet was a courtier. The Virgin Queen, herself no
The Renaissance
291
mean scholar, was the patron of letters, and the almost idolatrous
regard that poets like Edmund Spenser and Philip Sidney had
for her is clearly indicated in Charles Kingsley’s Westward Ho!
The history of modern English poetry begins years before the
accession of Elizabeth with Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl
of Surrey, both of whom lost their lives on the scaffold during
the tyranny of Henry VIII. Wyatt was the first poet to write
a sonnet in the English language. In addition to sonnets, Wyatt
wrote songs, madrigals, and elegies, and his pretty talent may be
gathered from his “The Lover’s Appeal”:
And wilt thou leave me thus.
That hath given thee my heart
Never for to depart
Neither for pain nor smart:
And wilt thou leave me thus.^
Say nay ! say nay !
And wilt thou leave me thus,
And have no more pity
Of him that loveth thee.^
Alas ! thy cruelty !
And wilt thou leave me thus.?
Say nay ! say nay !
Wyatt and his contemporary, Surrey, were the forerunners
of Sidney and Spenser. Sir Philip Sidney is one of the most
fascinating figures in English literary history— poet, scholar,
traveller, and soldier. His Arcadia is a prose romance some¬
thing in the manner of William Morris. His Apology for
Poetry is an interesting apology of a poet for his art. His
Astro phel and Stella is a series of sonnets relating the poet’s
own sad love story, over-coloured at times, but always sincere.
Here is the first sonnet of the series:
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show.
That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain, —
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The Outline of Literature
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, —
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain, —
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe.
Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain;
Oft turning others’ leaves to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful flower upon my sunburned brain.
But words came halting forth. . . .
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite.
“Pool,” said my muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.”
“The Faerie Queene”
Edmund Spenser, the author of “The Faery Queene,’' was
horn in London in 1552.
Merry London, my most kindly nurse.
That to me gave this life’s first native source.
He was educated at Merchant Taylor’s School and Pembroke
Hall, Cambridge, and while he was quite a boy he translated
Petrarch into English verse. His first volume of poetry, “The
Shepherd’s Calendar,” was published in 157-0 and dedicated to
Philip Sidney. In 1580 Spenser was appointed Secretary to
the Lord Deputy of Ireland, and most of the rest of his life was
spent in that country. He was concerned in the Elizabethan
repressions, and in his View of the State of Ireland he elaborated
a vigorous policy for bringing the Irish to heel that in after
years commended itself to Cromwell. Spenser was meanly
treated by the Queen, and Ben Jonson declares that he died of
starvation in 1599. He was buried near Chaucer in Westminster
Abbey. His great work, “The Faerie Queene,” was written in
Ireland. It is an elaborate series of allegories extremely diffi¬
cult to understand, in which the poet set out to describe the
character and training of an Englishman. The poem abounds in
the manner of Ariosto with brave knights and fearsome dragons.
Its value as literature depends on the charm of the verse, the
The Renaissance
293
variety of the imagery, and the abounding sense of beauty.
Charles Lamb describes Spenser as “the poets’ poet,” and Mil-
ton, Dryden, Pope, and Keats have acclaimed him their master.
Although Spenser’s touch is sometimes indecisive he has
often vivid pictures in “The Faerie Queene” — as that of the
knight peering into the den of the monster by the light of his
own gleaming mail; of Fury, chained in iron, with eyes that
flashed sparkles, gnawing his ruddy beard; of Mammon in his
armour of rusted iron and dull gold, counting his hoard of coins ;
or of the little fountain in the Bower of Bliss where the golden¬
haired girls were bathing. Some of the most attractive writing
is found in the “Epithalamion” :
Wake now, my love, awake! for it is time;
The Rosy Morn long since left Tithones bed.
All ready to her silver coche to clyme;
And Phoebus gins to shew his glorious hed.
Hark ! how the cheerefull birds do chaunt theyr laies
And carroll of Loves praise.
The merry Larke hir mattins sings aloft ;
The Thrush replyes ; the Mavis descant playes :
The Ouzell shrills ; the Ruddock warbles soft ;
So goodly all agree, with sweet consent,
To this dayes merriment.
Ah ! my deere love, why doe ye sleepe thus long.
When meeter were that ye should now awake,
T’ awayt the comming of your joyous make.
And hearken to the birds love-learned song.
The deawy leaves among!
Nor they of joy and pleasance to you sing,
That all the woods them answer, and theyr eccho ring
Harke! how the Minstrils gin to shrill aloud
Their merry Musick that resounds from far.
The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling Croud.
That well agree withouten breach or jar.
But, most of all, the Damzels doe delite
When they their tymbrels smyte,
294
The Outline of Literature
And thereunto doe daunce and carrol sweet,
That all the sences they doe ravish quite ;
The whyles the boyes run up and downe the street,
Crying aloud with strong confused noyce,
As if it were one voyce,
Hymen, io Hymen, Hymen, they do shout;
That even to the heavens theyr shouting shrill
Doth reach, and all the firmament doth fill ;
To which the people standing all about.
As in approvance, doe thereto applaud.
And loud advaunce her laud ;
And evermore they Hymen, Heymen sing.
That al the woods them answer, and theyr eccho ring.
Space forbids more than a passing reference to other notable
Elizabethan writers. Sir Walter Raleigh, a friend of Spenser,
was both man of action and man of letters, perhaps the most
chivalrous figure of a chivalrous age. When Elizabeth died and
James of Scotland ruled, this “tall, handsome, and bold man” was
imprisoned in the Tower for thirteen years, during which time he
wrote his History of the World. Michael Drayton — “golden¬
mouthed Drayton” — the friend of Shakespeare and Ben Jon-
son, born in 1563 and living till 1631, wrote sonnets which bear
comparison with those of Shakespeare himself. Drayton was
a voluminous writer and some of his most charming writing is
to be found in his early work, “The Shepherd’s Garland.” The
following are the last lines from a roundelay called “Crowning
the Shepherd’s Queen”:
From whence come all these shepherd swains.
And love nymphs attired in green?
From gathering garlands on the plains.
To crown our fair, the shepherd’s queen.
The sun that lights the world below.
Flocks, flowers, and brooks will witness bear ;
These nymphs and shepherds all do know
That it is she is only fair.
The Renaissance
295
BIBLIOGRAPHY
For the general study of the Renaissanee see Edith Schel’s The Renais¬
sance.
John Addington Symonds’s The Renaissance in Italy, 7 vols.
The Life of Gargantua, Urquhart’s translation.
W. F. Smith’s Rabelais in his Writings.
The Epistles of Erasmus, English translations from his correspondence,
edited by F. M. Nicholls, 3 vols.
Erasmus’s In Praise of Folly, together with a Life of Erasmus and his
Epistle addressed to Sir Thomas More.
Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, with the Dialogue of Comfort against Tribu¬
lation.
Don Quixote, 2 vols. in Everyman’s Library.
G. Saintsbury’s A History of Elizabethan Literature.
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